The year of 1993 by José Saramago or ⟪ the end of Man ⟫

In The Year of 1993 (O ano de 1993), published in 1975, Jose Saramago presents us a dystopian prediction of the future, describing the nightmare of a society dominated by oppressive and totalitarian technology. In an apocalyptic scenario that announces the end of humanity, the writer exposes the inhuman condition of contemporary man, manipulated by a kind of instrumental and mechanistic rationality that has stripped him of his humanity, transforming him into a mechanised social being. The author also seems to denounce Western man's assertion of power and sovereignty over the other, in an attempt to annul that other, human or non-human. This article analyses the narrative procedures used by Saramago to represent this humanistic pessimism and apocalyptic prediction of humanity, in the light of the anti-humanist thought of Michel Foucault, who, long before the Portuguese author, announced the end or death of man (Les mots et les choses, 1946).