José Saramago's Claraboya

       AFP reports that 'Lost' novel by dead Nobel laureate published, as José Saramago's early novel, Claraboya, has finally been published:

Saramago sent the manuscript for Claraboya, which tells the tale of residents of a Lisbon apartment building, through a friend to a Portuguese publishing house in 1953 but never heard back from them.

       Well, he didn't hear back until 46 years later, at which point he presumably told them where they could stuff it. (At that point he he didn't want it published.)
       It's always great to see yet another case of a publisher acting so professionally and responsibly -- especially when it had such consequences:

The author did not write another novel for nearly two decades after he failed to get a response from the publishing house over Claraboya and focused instead on his career as a journalist.

       Of course, given the times, they probably would have been too chicken to publish it anyway (because, you know, they're publishers and their business is ... oh, wait ...).
       Spanish journalist Pilar del Rio is quoted:

She said Claraboya is a "transgressive novel" which the publishing house did not dare publish in Portugal during the dictatorship of Antonio de Oliveira Salazar, which ruled the country until 1974.

"It was a difficult novel for the era. It is a book where the family which is the pillar of society is a bit of a nest of vipers. There is rape, lesbian love, abuse. Could Portuguese society handle this in the 1950s ? I don't think so," said del Rio.

       Still, a rejection letter explaining things might have been nice .....