As part of the Literary Tourism Action Programme and on the occasion of José Saramago's centenary, the Turismo de Portugal’s project: Viagem a Portugal Revisited (Journey to Portugal Revisited) is launched.
Developed in partnership with the José Saramago Foundation, this project consists of a reconstruction of the itineraries taken by Saramago, and described in the work of the same name, by contemporary national and international authors. José Luís Peixoto, winner of the José Saramago Literary Award in 2001, is the first author to be challenged to write a contemporary account of the journey and the places visited. The project is an opportunity to make known the immense territory that served as Saramago’s inspiration, the places, landscapes, flavours and people, but also to promote Portugal as a literary tourism destination.
It was between October 1979 and July 1980 that José Saramago travelled the country, at the invitation of Círculo de Leitores (a Portuguese Book Club), writing "Viagem a Portugal” (“Journey to Portugal"), which describes our country like no other. And already at that time, the writer stressed that "it is necessary to see what has not been seen, to see again what has already been seen, to see in spring what was seen in summer, to see by day what was seen at night... It is necessary to return to the steps that have been taken, to repeat them, and to trace new paths". In addition to the tribute paid to José Saramago, author of more than 40 works and holder of the Nobel Prize for Literature and the Camões Prize, this project invites to visit Portugal through the writer's eyes and aims to motivate interaction with other literary itineraries, based on other works by Saramago and places mentioned in them.
In early 2022 the digital platform – Viagem a Portugal Revisited (Journey to Portugal Revisited) - will be launched, with the itineraries of the work and the contents of the places revisited by the authors, which can thus be discovered in an interactive and dynamic way, through an innovative itinerary on a 3D map with Google Earth technology. Written, visual and sound content will also be disseminated through different channels and for sharing on YouTube, Spotify and Apple.
The Literary Tourism Action Programme aims to put Portugal on the map of literary destinations, to enhance and promote the Literary Tourism supply and to enhance the Portuguese language and its writers, in dialogue with the territory, contributing to social and territorial cohesion and boosting tourism business.
