All the Names

A subtle and insightful story about boredom, passion, curiosity and memory from the Nobel Prize-winner José Saramago

Senhor José is a lonely civil servant who spends his days labouring in the labyrinthine stacks of Lisbon's central registry. Among the file-cards for the living and the dead, one - of an apparently ordinary woman - will transform his life. Breaking away from his strict routine, José resolves to track the woman down, obsessively following a thread of clues in a bid to rescue her from an oblivion deeper than the grave.

'When a very good book finds us at just the right moment in life, it can become stitched into our own identity. All the Names - a novel about identity and connection - has become stitched into mine' Samantha Harvey, Independent