The Elephant's Journey

The Elephant's Journey is a novel by the Portuguese writer José Saramago, published in 2008. It draws on a real episode from the mid-sixteenth century: King João III of Portugal gave his cousin, Archduke Maximilian of Austria, an Asian elephant named Solomon, which had previously belonged to Catherine of Austria. The book follows the animal's long trek from Lisbon to Vienna, a journey that required crossing a Europe torn by civil wars and the Reformation.

Saramago turns that trip into a reflection on human nature. Humour and irony allow him to examine, with compassion, the weaknesses of kings, nobles, clergy and servants. Subhro, the elephant's keeper, offers advice that the captain of the escort accepts sometimes with bewilderment and sometimes with irony. Against the ignorance of the monarchs, the footman who knows how to refine an order stands out as someone able to improve other people's ideas, and the story stresses that all humans are imperfect and that their distinction rests on a privilege of class.

The novel blends historical chronicle with fiction and gives equal attention to people and animals. Its calm tone, that of a narrator who observes without solemnity, is among its most recognised features.

The book was shortlisted for the 2009 São Paulo Prize for Literature in the Best Book of the Year category. Its English translation by Margaret Jull Costa appeared in 2010 and won the Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize in 2011.