Manual of Painting and Calligraphy Author:Jose Saramago Manual of Painting and Calligraphy is José Saramago?s first novel. Written eight years before the critically acclaimed Baltasar and Blimunda, it is a story of self-discovery, set against the background of the last years of Salazar?s dictatorship. A struggling young artist, commissioned to paint a portrait of an influential industrialist, learns ... more »in the process about himself and the world around him. The brilliant juxtaposition of a passionate love story and the crisis of a nation foreshadows all of Saramago?s major works. A must for any devotee of the great Portuguese Nobel laureate, available in the United States for the first time.« less