num_pages: 346
description: From the recipient of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Literature, a “brilliant...enchanting novel” (New York Times Book Review) of romance, deceit, religion, and magic set in eighteenth-century Portugal at the height of the Inquisition. National bestseller.When King and Church exercise absolute power what happens to the dreams of ordinary people? In early eighteenth century Lisbon, Baltasar, a soldier who has lost a hand in battle, falls in love with Blimunda, a young girl with visionary powers. From the day that he follows her home from the auto-da-fe where her mother is condemned and burned at the stake, the two are bound body and soul by a love of unassailable strength. A third party shares their supper that evening: Pardere Bartolemeu Lourenco, whose fantasy is to invent a flying machine. As the inquisition rages and royalty and religion clash, they pursue his impossible, not to mention heretical, dream of flight.
language: English
title: Baltasar and Blimunda
titlecomplete: Baltasar and Blimunda
characters: Baltasar, Blimunda
genres: Portugal, Historical Fiction, Nobel Prize, Historical, Portuguese Literature, Literature, Classics, Romance, Fiction, Magical Realism
ratings_count: 21800
places: Portugal, Lisbon
awards: awardedAt: 378720000000
name: Prémio Literário Município de Lisboa
category: Prosa de Ficção, awardedAt: 410256000000
name: Prémio PEN Clube Português da Novelística
publisher: Vintage Classics