The prose poem O ano de 1993 by José Saramago (Tentative English title: Resist Persist Repeat) opened to page 14 of the English translation, the beginning of section four. It reads:
The interrogation of the man who left his home after curfew began a fortnight ago and has continued without pause.
The interrogators ask one question every sixty minutes, twenty-four per day, and demand fifty-nine different answers for each of them.
It's a new method.
They believe that it's impossible for the true answer not to be among the fifty-nine given.
And they rely on the perceptiveness of the computer to discover which one it is and its linkage with the others.
The man hasn't slept in fifteen days, nor will he be allowed to sleep until the computer requires no more data or the doctor doesn’t need so much.
In which case he will have his final sleep.
A page from my English translation of "O ano de 1993" by Nobel Laureate José Saramago. An anti-fascist prose poem as relevant now as the day it was published in 1975.
Tentative English title: "Resist Persist Repeat"
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