An Unexpected Light

Nobel Prize winner José Saramago tells a quiet and poetic story, an excerpt from his book Small Memories, of a lasting childhood experience of simple, soulful joy.

The narrator's memories of a lost childhood paradise focus on two glorious days when he helped his uncle take some piglets to the market in Santarém. They traverse dusty roads, sleep in a barn and awake to a miraculous moonglow, and hear the animals in their “infinite conversations.” The journey, the night, the wind, the light. . ...