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. Translated by Giovanni Pontiero.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 strange visionary powers. From the day that he follows her home from the auto-da-fé where her mother is condemned and sent into exile, the two are bound body and soul by a love of unassailable strength. A third party shares their supper that evening: Padre Bartolemeu Lourenço, 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: Mariner Books