Manual De Pintura Y Caligrafía

The last years of Salazar's dictatorship provide a backdrop for this novel. The story is told by H., a second-rate artist commissioned by a wealthy client, S., to paint a family portrait. As he works, he reflects on his struggles to survive in a bourgeois world. The struggles and compromises of the common man, the ethics of the intellectual, and the love of man are the ingredients that comprise this novel by Josi Saramago.