A Journey to Portugal Revisited: Another Reading

It has been said many times what seems obvious: the focus on reading is a privileged gateway into the José Saramago Centenary program. What may seem less obvious is considering that the so-called "Saramaguian Geography" constitutes an extremely suggestive component of the appreciation of reading and rereading Saramago, in the context of his Centenary. Let's see why.

When we started planning the Centenary program, the idea for a project that we now call Journey to Portugal Revisited already existed. It wasn't difficult for me to reach a conclusion: this new Journey to Portugal should be a central initiative in the celebration of Saramago's Centenary. For that, we had everything: an admirable book, Journey to Portugal, as an interpretation of the Portuguese landscape (which it was, even before it was written); the desire to bring this unique interpretation to many people, in another language and in many places; a competent partner, Turismo de Portugal, a partner well aware of the significance of this perspective that the writer cast on his country.

But we had more: a kind of legitimation by the writer. Here is what Saramago wrote at the end of his Journey to Portugal: “The journey never ends. Only the travelers end. And even they can prolong themselves in memory, in remembrance, in narrative.” And in the last lines: “It is necessary to begin the journey again. Always. The traveler returns soon.”

We're back on track, with the help of digital tools, in partnership with Turismo de Portugal, and adding other voices and perspectives from other writers. From Portugal, Spain, and other places. That's what it's all about when we talk about literary tourism and see that literature accepts remaking the landscape or, perhaps better, when we make literature out of the landscape. And when we travel to distant places, along little-known paths, through forgotten corners, looking at the people who inhabit them and their memory.

As is well known, travel is a strong motif in José Saramago's work, as are the travelers found within it. Travelers through space, as in *Journey to Portugal* and also in *The Stone Raft* or *The Elephant's Journey*; travelers through time (through History), as in *Memorial do Convento*, *The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis*, *The History of the Siege of Lisbon*, or *The Gospel According to Jesus Christ*. Because travel and literature (especially travel and narrative) have always been accomplices. In this regard, I recall one of Fernando Pessoa's best-known poems: ’Ancient navigators had a glorious phrase: / To navigate is necessary; to live is not necessary“; and as a conclusion: ”To live is not / necessary; what is necessary is to create.“

Meeting the need to create—that's what the website Viagem a Portugal Revisited aims to do. Its name, besides referencing Saramago's book, echoes two famous poems by Fernando Pessoa/Álvaro de Campos, both titled "Lisbon Revisited." And so it is. To revisit Portugal is to look again, with Saramago as a guide who challenges us: "Let the reader take the following pages as a challenge and an invitation." A double invitation, because, as stated, we invite contemporary writers to retrace Saramago's journey, in a double dialogue: with the Portuguese space and with the perspective Saramago cast upon that space. And thus, with the space transformed by the writer (by writers), the final result of this project will be plural and ever-renewed: many perspectives, different images, constant rediscovery.

Finally, the "Journey to Portugal Revisited" project represents an impetus for overcoming borders, and is also an invitation to visit and a proposal for reinventing the landscape. As Saramago said, at the beginning of his journey, when he stopped the car to look. Between Portugal and Spain, the writer "appears on the parapet at that exact centimeter where the invisible border line passes." Let us learn: "the invisible border line." As if to say: there is no border that cannot be made invisible. Or, perhaps, nonexistent.

Carlos Reis

Commissioner for the Centenary of José Saramago