Months before his death, José Saramago felt once again the vital impulse from fiction to reflect on one of its major concerns: violence against persons and societies, which makes them victims and prevents them from owning their absolute lives. The result of this impulse is Halberds, halberds, muskets, shotguns, an exciting footprint inexhaustible fighting spirit of José Saramago and his last narrative will. The unfinished story has a moral conflict Artur Semedo Paz, an employee of a weapons factory, who, intrigued by the sabotage of a bomb during the Spanish Civil War and driven by Felicia, his former wife, began investigating the intricacies of an era convulsive, which aroused in him an intimate discussion between blindness imposed by the inherited fear and the need for commitment. This special edition, illustrated with engravings by Günter Grass, includes notes Saramago's work, in which the author presents what the end of the story would be told. It is further complemented with texts by Italian journalist and writer Roberto Saviano, and Spanish poet and essayist Fernando Gómez Aguilera. Halberds, halberds, muskets, shotguns is a reflection on power and destruction on how weapons feed the great ethical failure of humanity that are the wars, peace as the only possible way to break the apparent inevitability of violence .
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.