Written in 1980, Raised From the Ground was the novel with which Jose Saramago first found his distinctive voice and style. It is set in the Alentejo, the rural area of Portugal where Saramago's family came from, and follows the fortunes of the Mau-Tempo family (literally, the Badweathers) from the beginning of the twentieth century through to its middle. While the First and Second World Wars rumble on in the background, Joao Mau-Tempo suffers the suicide of his father, a drunken cobbler, followed by hardship as his mother tries to make ends meet in a society where the landowners are all-powerful and the life of a hired hand is unremittingly harsh. As communist ideas start to spread among the labourers, Joao becomes politicised, but ends up being imprisoned. Nevertheless, the novel ends with optimism as, in a May Day revolution, the workers take over the land and form cooperatives. Highly political yet full of Saramago's characteristic humour and humanity, this is a novel as full of love as it is of pain. It is a vivid, moving tribute to the men and women among whom Saramago lived as a child, and a fascinating insight into the early work of this literary giant.

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