The Portuguese writer won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1998 and became well-known to the readers for his books of subversive perspectives on historic events, in which he emphasizes the human factor rather than the officially sanctioned story. Jose Saramago, 84, has recently released his newest book, entitled “Death with Interruptions.”

No precise location or time period is mentioned at the beginning of his book, but he lets us know it’s the beginning of a new year in a small country. One of the special things about this book is that his characters don’t have names, but generic functions. He calls them by the name of what they are and do, like prime minister, mother or editor.

"No one died. . . . New year's eve had failed to leave behind it the usual calamitous trail of fatalities, as if old atropos with her great bared teeth had decided to put aside her shears for a day," the writer says, introducing the reader into a new and strange world. The most common process into the human history stops functioning. No one dies anymore but times still goes on. And if that was what everybody had wished for a long time, they reached to realize that it’s not so desirable: people are still ill and suffering and the old age still comes.

Given this fact, the author shows the “dithering of the government,” which are trying to find a solution for the devastating happening. Here, Saramago makes a wonderful description of the government corruption and media hysteria just like it is in our days.

"The church has never been asked to explain anything," the cardinal tells the prime minister. "Our specialty, along with ballistics, has always been the neutralization of the overly curious mind through faith," he adds. So the church can’t do anything either.

“Death with Interruptions” is a spectacular novel written by a talented and awarded writer, who catches the exact timing of his works. Will death come eventually?