«Quero saber se isto é verdade». The novel and the crisis of communism in José Saramago

The collapse of communism in Eastern Europe had the effect of a return to reality, a disenchantment with democracy (Patrick Michel 1999). The work of José Saramago, a militant member of the PCP, must be read in a very specific context in which Portuguese revolutionary and patriotic euphoria was quickly disenchanted by triumphant capitalism and unstoppable globalisation. The struggles for recognition of minorities and/ or cultural peripheries are made explicit in his novels as well as in his political engagement. In História do cerco de Lisboa, elements such as the value of history and memory, identity and otherness, or poetic verisimilitude and its moral (and justice) component come into play, becoming an ideological revealer of the changes that took place at the end of the 20th century. The left defended by Saramago is committed to a principle of hope: his narrative shows us that it is no longer the real that grounds the credible, but the credible that grounds the real. This article aims to analyse Saramago's narrative of this period from the perspective of the anthropology of belief.