The first boat

«"The sea is the universe close to us."»
On October 3, 1996, at the request of some friends who wanted to publish a collection of books about the sea, José Saramago rehearsed in the fourth of his Lanzarote Notebooks the preface to the reissue of Joseph, by Armando Palacio Valdés: the story of a man who, before setting sail for the first time in his first boat, reflects on the vast blue expanse before him.

«"The First Boat" was originally published in Lanzarote Notebooks — Diary IV, October 3, 1996.

A sensitive and beautifully illustrated book about the power of nature and unity, in the words of one of the greatest writers in our language.

This text was first published in the book Lanzarote II notebooks (Companhia das Letras, 2014) with the title “Preface to a Book”.

«Before building the first boat, the man sat on the beach looking at the sea».

This is the story of a man who lives beside the sea. It is the very sea that gives it everything it needs to survive. Life awaits, but there is a lack of courage to enter the sonorous waters of this ocean. The man knows that this sea that gives him everything, if he wants, can take him away.

A poetic story that will resonate with anyone who spent some time near the sea, listening to the sound of the ocean.

The first boat comes from the notebooks of Lanzarote on October 3, 1996.