J. M. Ledgard…it would be hard to more highly recommend a novel to be downed in a single draft…Simply, this book flows, and keeps on flowing. In part this is due to Saramago's idiosyncratic typography, which often abandons periods, capital letters and paragraphs. His exuberance causes the details of dung, armor, fireworks and elephant hair to reverberate.
—The New York Times
Publishers WeeklyThis charming tale of an elephant given by the 16th-century Portuguese king João III to the Archduke of Austria has much to recommend it, despite its being a minor work from the late Nobel laureate. Setting off with the elephant from Lisbon, the elephant's Indian keeper becomes unlikely friends with an army commander on the sun-scorched road to Valladolid, where the archduke awaits.
