Senhor Jose 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, Senior Jose 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 Jose Saramago in brilliant form.