José Saramago
Foundation

Why do readers read? To find something, or to find themselves? When a reader approaches the entrance of a book, is it to get to know it, or to recognize themselves in it? Does the reader want reading to be a journey of discovery through the poet's world (I now refer to all literary work as poetry, if I may), or, without wanting to admit it, do they suspect that this journey will be nothing more than a simple re-treading of their own familiar paths? Aren't the writer and the reader like two road maps of different countries or regions that, when superimposed, become, to a certain extent, both transparent through reading, only to coincide a few times in longer or shorter stretches of road, leaving inaccessible and secret non-communicating spaces, where only the writer in their writing and the reader in their reading will circulate alone, without company? More concisely: what do we actually understand when we seek to grasp, once again in a broad sense, the poetic word and spirit?

(From the conference "The author as omniscient narrator", 1999)