**WINNER OF THE NOBEL PRIZE FOR LITERATURE
José Saramago's mesmerizing, classic narrative about the loneliness of
individual lives and the universal need for human connection.
**Senhor José is a low-grade clerk in the city's Central Registry, where
the living and the dead share the same shelf space. A middle-aged
bachelor, he has no interest in anything beyond the certificates of
birth, marriage, divorce, and death that are his daily routine. But one
day, when he comes across the records of an anonymous young woman,
something happens to him. Obsessed, Senhor José sets off to follow the
thread that may lead him to the woman--but as he gets closer, he
discovers more about her, and about himself, than he would ever have
wished.The loneliness of people's lives, the effects of chance, the
discovery of love--all coalesce in this extraordinary novel that
displays the power and art of José Saramago in brilliant form.