- Death with Interruptions -

Now and then we have a customer that has a challenging concept for us to work with. This beautiful Argentinian woman contacted me and wanted to take photos that portrayed the book “Death with Interruptions”, written by José Saramago. The portuguese novelist and poet was awarded with the Nobel Prize for literature in 1998. His output is often characterised as magic realism with Latin American mysticism, often compared to such writers as Gabriel Garcia Márquez or Franz Kafka.

- Plot summary –
(This story centers around death as a phenomenon, and as a character herself).

On the first day of the new year, no one dies! Shortly after death begins her break (death being a woman here)  there is a general havoc and this causes a catastrophic collapse among politicians, religious leaders, morticians, and doctors. The cardinal of the catholic church is one of the first to be upset. With no death, there is no resurrection. At first the people are overjoyed, life everlasting, how wonderful!—flags are hung out on balconies, people dance in the streets. They have achieved the great goal of humanity: eternal life. Then reality hits home—families are left to care for the permanently dying, life-insurance policies become meaningless, nursing  hospitals are overrun with patients who cannot die and cannot live and funeral parlors are reduced to arranging burials for animals.

Will death succumb to human love? As she falls in love with a terminally ill cellist.

- Click images to enlarge -

1) • Death sits in her chilly apartment, where she lives alone with scythe, and contemplates her experiment: What if no one ever died again? What if she, death with a small d, became human and were to fall in love.
2) • Death with the purple envelopes that informs recipients that their time on earth is up.

3) • Death dies by becoming alive. Entering the light.

4) • Death is dead! She is now human and alive.

Different portraits of my fellow South American, Lily

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