Mafra, Portugal – “There has been a significant drop in [the number of] school visits since ‘Baltasar and Blimunda’ is no longer being read” in secondary schools,” the director of the palace, Mário Pereira, told Lusa.
‘Baltasar and Blimuda’ was mandatory reading for several years but in the 2016/2017 school year was just one of two reading options for Saramago, along with his ‘The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis’. In the 2017/2018 school year this latter work is the one that pupils must study, ruling out ‘Baltasar and Blimuda’.
Only in the 2020/21 school year will it be possible for pupils to choose to study the novel.
In the 2016/2017 school year, the Mafra palace saw over 32,000 students participate in guided visits relating to Saramago’s novel, but the following year the number dropped to 5,400.
‘Baltasar and Blimuda’ was published in 1982 under the Portuguese title ‘Memorial do Convent’ and has been translated into at least 20 languages. As the first work of Saramago’s to sell well abroad, it helped him win the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1998 – the first and only writer in Portuguese to win.
