title: Baltasar and Blimunda
author: Saramago, Jose
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.
   Portugal, 1711: an amorous friar is pursued naked through the rubble-strewn streets of Lisbon; an enthusiastic procession of flagellants roars with pleasure over the damnation of adultery; a royal prince uses hapless sailors for target practice; and women dressed in colorful finery watch as lapsed converts and sorcerers are put to death by flames. In the midst of the terrors of the Inquisition and the plague, a seemingly mismatched couple discover the wonders of love. This poetic tale, graced with exquisite historical details and full of magic and adventure, is a tapestry of human folly and human will.