The Double

A San Franscisco Chronicle Best Book of 2004

"It's tempting to think of [The Double] as his masterpiece." -- The New York Times

Tertuliano M ximo Afonso is a divorced, depressed history teacher. To lift his spirits, a colleague suggests he rent a certain video. Tertuliano watches the film, unimpressed. But during the night, when he is awakened by noise, he goes into the living room to find the VCR replaying the video. He watches in astonishment as a man who looks exactly like him-- or, more specifically, exactly like he did five years before, mustachioed and fuller in the face-- appears on the screen. He sleeps badly.

Against his better judgment, Tertuliano decides to pursue his double. As he roots out the man's identity, what begins as a whimsical story becomes a "wonderfully twisted meditation on identity and individuality" (The Boston Globe). Saramago displays his remarkable talent in this haunting tale of appearance versus reality.

"Our impression is of a writer, like Faulkner, so confident of his resources and ultimate destination that he can bring any impossibility to life by hurling words at it." -- John Updike, The New Yorker

JOS SARAMAGO is one of the most acclaimed writers in the world today. The author of numerous novels, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1998.