The History of the Siege of Lisbon (Portuguese: História do Cerco de Lisboa) is a novel by Portuguese author José Saramago, first published in 1989. It tells the story of a proofreader and the story of the Siege of Lisbon as it both is and is not told in the book he is charged with correcting. It discusses many themes including language, history and historiography, and war in the medieval world. In the novel Saramago challenges the common one-dimensional interpretations of historical events that only focuses on kings and battles and ask for a more pluralistic perspective that include individual motives and behaviour and take account of the role of chance in shaping history. Source: Wikipedia (en)