The first references to the town of Lavre, or Lavar as it was known in the Middle Ages, date back to the 13th century. It became a municipality in 1304, receiving a charter from King Dennis. It remained in possession of the crown until 1430, the year in which King John I gave it to the German Lamberto Horques with the aim of boosting the population of the region. In 1520, Lavre received a new charter from King Manuel. Lavre was one of the Alentejo towns most badly affected by the 1755 earthquake, damage being caused to most buildings. From then on, it declined and, in 1836, the municipality disappeared and the territory was joined to Montemor-o-Novo. Lavre now belongs to the municipality of Montemor-o-Novo, has an area of ​​116.40 km² and had a population of 740 in 2011.

Useful contacts:

Union of Parishes of Cortiçadas de Lavre and Lavre 265 894 193

Emergency contacts:

GNR National Guard Police 265 894 211

Leaving Lavre by the northern exit, turn left, next to an old drinking trough, and you will see a plaque commemorating the 25th anniversary of the publication of Raised from the Ground (Levantado do Chão) on the wall of the Besugas’ house.

During his stay in Lavre in 1976, José Saramago ate at Mariana and João Besuga’s house. In 2019, Mariana Besuga, who was now living in Lisbon with her daughter, Paula Alves, made a point of welcoming us at the house where José Saramago was so warmly welcomed, in just the same manner. The memory of the role played by this house in the era is still very much alive among the elderly residents of Lavre. During the Agrarian Reform, Mariana and João held an open house: it served as a doctor’s surgery, and it was here that many people were able to see a doctor for the first time in their lives. Students and doctors were served lunch and for a short period also the writer, José Saramago. Mariana Besuga, a widow, has fond memories of her husband, and tells us that the couple were just following their dream: “As long as there was Agrarian Reform, there was always another place at our table!”

José Saramago never forgot the town of Lavre and continued to be friends with Mariana Besuga. Mariana herself remembers vividly the day she met the writer who would go on to win the Nobel Prize for Literature.

“That day I had gone there to collect some money, and my husband and Saramago arrived. The door was open and the table was set. The only reason I hadn’t laid a place for Saramago was because I didn’t know he was coming. My husband said: ‘Listen wife, this is a comrade. We’re all going to hear a lot about him.’ Poor thing … he walked in and said: ‘Can I wash my hands?’ and we told him where to go. And then he said ‘What’s for lunch? What have you got?’. I replied ‘Look, it’s stew’. ‘Are there any broad beans?’ ‘No, there aren’t any broad beans.’ ‘Because I don’t like broad beans. I like everything except broad beans. So, that’s fine – no broad beans.’ ” (Besuga, 2019).

In Rua Bernardino Machado, you will see the building that belonged to Cooperativa de Consumo Vento de Leste cooperative society, now private property. José Saramago found accommodation here during his stay in the town of Lavre, from 18th March to 2nd May 1976. The society welcomed the writer in the spirit of the Agrarian Reform, which meant that they always helped those who were in need. Lavre played an exemplary role in the process of Agrarian Reform and therefore attracted many people. Everyone collaborated with each other, for example doctors and students and, with what could be described as his ever-lasting contribution, the writer José Saramago, who disseminated to the wider world the voices of the Alentejo people in their struggle, in what is the first great literary work of the Nobel Prizewinner for Literature.

Following the Revolution of April 1974, and in the wake of the attempted military coup on 25th November 1975 which resulted in the end of the Processo Revolucionário em Curso – Ongoing Revolutionary Process, which was replaced by the Processo Constitucional em Curso – Ongoing Constitutional Process, the Diário de Notícias closed. After eight months working at the newspaper as deputy editor, José Saramago was now unemployed.

During the period José Saramago was in Lavre, Joaquim Vinagre was fifteen years old and his father, António Vinagre, President of the Cooperativa de Consumo Vento de Leste, asked his son to accompany the writer on his wanderings around the town and country. António Vinagre recounts how he met the writer.

At the time, my father worked at the cooperative society. He was the manager, and he was always up to speed with what was going on there. The cooperative was downstairs and Saramago stayed on the first floor, and if he wanted to know anything about the cooperative he would go to my father. During the day, he was the only person Saranago saw, he didn’t have any contact with anyone else. And my father told him all he knew about everything. Very often my father would say: “Look, Saramago needs company. Go with him.” ’ (Vinagre, 2018).

Go along Rua Bernardino Machado to Largo da Igreja square. Then go along Rua Machado dos Santos and halfway down the street you will see the Casa de Leitura José Saramago – José Saramago Library, which houses a branch of Montemor-o-Novo Municipal Library.

While the book Raised from the Ground is more than sufficient reason for the tribute paid to the writer on this tour, the history of the library highlights an additional aspect. José Saramago had already visited Lavre in 1975. When he came to stay here, this was following an appeal made by Bernardino Barbas Pires at the Vasco Santana Theatre in Lisbon at a meeting of the Movimento Unitário de Trabalhadores Intelectuais for a donation of books for the creation of a new library in the town.

At the end of Rua Miguel Bombarda, next to Praça da República, there is a small house with a green door, where at the time of writing in 2019 traces of Maria Saraiva’s grocer’s shop were still evident, such as the advertisement stuck to the door. Maria Saraiva inspired José Saramago to create the character “Maria Graniza”

The people of Lavre still remember Maria Saraiva and her grocery store that fed them in their time of need. Her actions mean that she is still remembered with great affection as “the mother of the poor”. Elvira Saraiva, her daughter, remembers José Saramago’s time in Lavre, as he often visited them for a chat after the grocer’s shop closed. Elvira remembers that he asked a lot of questions about her mother’s life, but what she holds most dearly in her memory is the fact that he was a newcomer who spoke in a different way from other people. He raised their awareness as to gender discrimination, and Elvira has never forgotten the man who brought with him words of change and social transformation.

“Maria Saraiva became Maria Graniza. This was because he didn’t use the surnames of the people he met. She had a grocer’s shop, my mother. As he knew a lot because people told him their stories he would go there and talk to her. He recorded everything she said.

And my impression of him is that he was a gentleman. After the 25th of April, a lot of men were very rude but he treated people, especially women, politely. He was refined. He was a pleasant person, educated and wise, which was extremely unusual. And we delighted in listening to what he had to say. […] My mother told him many stories about things that happened there and he used them in the book.” (Saraiva, 2017).

In 1998, Manuel Vieira interviewed Maria Saraiva for an article entitled “Maria Saraiva: memories of all time”, published in the newspaper Folha de Montemor in January 1999, in which she recalls her friend José Saramago.

“When he was in Lavre, one day he came up and started talking to me. When he realised that I knew a lot about life in Lavre and the problems that had beset this area and the whole Alentejo region, we engaged in conversation more frequently. We talked about the many things I had seen first hand and others I knew about.” (Saraiva, M., 1999).

Turn the corner into Rua Cândido dos Reis and you come to the Serras’ last home: a low, white dwelling with blue door- and window-frames.

When António Serra spoke to us, he said that they lived in other houses in Lavre and that this was the family’s last home. Saramago was inspired to use António Serra as the model for the character “António Mau-Tempo”.

Finding out which of the three male children of the Serra family provided the model for the character “António Mau-Tempo” was not difficult. All they had to do was tell us a little about their life and we soon knew.

“I left primary school when I was eleven years old and by the time I was sixteen I was doing the full range of agricultural tasks. I was a water carrier, herded cattle, harvested … and then I found a job in Lisbon through an acquaintance who had a job there. If I hadn’t left all this, I would have followed in my father’s footsteps, working on the land and being exploited left, right and centre. Later I joined the navy.” (Serra, 2019).

It was also at this house that José Saramago met João Domingos Serra and his family. At that meeting, João Serra gave his biographical memories to José Saramago: a handwritten document that was published in 2010 by the José Saramago Foundation with the title Uma Família do Alentejo, prefaced by Saramago. In the preface, the writer mentions those who contributed with their stories to the plot of Raised from the Ground and highlights the contribution of João Serra.

This is the final point of interest on the tour: the ruins of “Ponte Cava” (literally ‘Cava Bridge’), located downstream from the mill where millers “Picanço” and “Picança” worked. In Saramago’s work, the couple help the “Mau-Tempo” family, safeguarding them from the malicious intentions of “Domingos Mau-Tempo” which forced them to leave and live somewhere else.

The two millers appear again in the narrative when “João Mau-Tempo” calls at the mill on his way to work at Herdade da “Pedra Grande” estate and later at the 1958 demonstration in Montemor-o-Novo. The miller characters “Picanço” and “Picança” are based on José Alvarenga and Filipa Umbelina and the estate in question is a private property with the name Pedrógão. The chapter ends with the hanging of “Domingos Mau-Tempo” (cf. Saramago, 2014, p.52), although the man who he was based on, Domingos Serra, did not committ suicide. According to João Serra’s memories, he later lived the life of a migrant worker (cf. Serra, 2010, pp. 59-60).

Saramago walked this way to Ponte Cava several times. Sometimes he was alone and sometimes young Joaquim Vinagre accompanied him.

“When he arrived, I think Mr. Barbas Pires gave him some information and advised him that it would be a good place to start writing the book. And this road was used by many of these people who were often persecuted by the PIDE – this was the road they had to take to get to the estates: Pedrógão and Lobeira, and also Arneiros and Vale da Bica. Then there were also these gentlemen like Mr. Cabecinha and others who gave him information about what they went through in hiding and the meetings they held. Then there were little pieces of information which came up on the way. Here, where we are, I know this kind of thing came up and there was one occasion when Mr. Cabecinha talked a lot about such things. I could see Saramago was interested and wrote it all down.” (Vinagre, 2018).

José Saramago always carried a radio tape-recorder and a notepad with him and was ready to record life in this area, one of the places where clandestine newspapers and activists’ pamphlets urging people to stand up for their rights and join the revolutionary struggle during Salazar’s dictatorship could be found. In 1976, the place was very busy as it provided access to many farms which were collective production units and had a large number of rural workers. Here, at Ponte Cava, the writer sought to record the stories of the Alentejo people, so that he himself could tell them to the world, weaving the narrative of great literary beauty and human depth that was Raised from the Ground.

José Saramago knew that the ruins of Ponte Cava were a special place, for encounters, inspiration and, above all, the struggle. This is a place that we hope will host many more meetings and provide great inspiration for those who continue the struggle for a fairer, more fraternal, freer world.

José Saramago trazia sempre consigo um rádio gravador e um bloco de notas, pronto a captar a vida neste cruzamento, um dos locais onde se podiam encontrar os jornais clandestinos ou outros panfletos de mobilização para a luta reivindicativa e revolucionária durante a ditadura de Salazar. Em 1976, este lugar era muito movimentado pois dava acesso a muitas herdades das Unidades Coletivas de Produção, que tinham um grande número de trabalhadores rurais. Aqui, na Ponte Cava, o escritor aguardava ouvir as histórias do povo alentejano, para que ele mesmo as pudesse vir a contar ao mundo em toda a beleza literária e profundidade humana de Levantado do Chão.

A ruína da Ponte Cava, sabia-o José Saramago, é um lugar de encontros, de inspiração e, sobretudo, de luta. Por isso, este é um lugar que esperemos vir a propiciar muitos encontros e muita inspiração àqueles que hão de continuar a lutar por um mundo mais justo, mais fraterno, mais livre.