During the mid-sixteenth century, king John III of Portugal presented his cousin Maximilian, the archduke of Austria, with an Asian elephant. This novel recounts the epic voyage of Salomon the elephant, and the journey it undertook to satisfy royal whims. El viaje del elefante is a mix of real and imaginary facts that leads us to recognize reality and fiction as an indissoluble unity. It is also a reflection on the human condition, where humor and irony, marks of the ruthless clarity of the author, come together with the compassion with which Saramago views human weaknesses.