The relationship between history and fiction according to José Saramago

Abstract

In order to get into the relationship between fiction and history in José Saramago, it is important, first of all, to familiarize oneself with his interviews, essays and diaries on the subject, since Saramago was often asked about this interdisciplinary relationship in his works, whether in communication programs, conferences or lectures. We will see that, with the study of this critical-reflective material by Saramago about his own works, it will be possible to bring the Portuguese fiction writer closer to the critical position, which consider the possibility of appropriation, by contemporary literature, of the themes of history. Together with these scholars, we It is this perspective, in fact, that differentiates, in our understanding, the historical fiction from the historiographical metafiction or even from the romantic historical novel. What is proposed here, therefore, is a reopening of the debate on the relationship between fiction and history in José Saramago, which many have ended, in order to better explore this capacity of Saramago's narrative to provide historiographically intelligible traits to literature, making its narrative space a field of semantic implications that make possible the critical and hypothetical representation of historical themes and sources.  will reflect on a Saramaguian fiction that creatively unfolds historical sources and not just a fiction set in illusion or in the deconstruction of representations of the past.