The mediating role of literary tour guides: José Saramago versus Mafra’s National Palace

Abstract

Tour guides play a decisive role in mediating existing gaps in literary and cultural tourism, helping reconcile the appeal of literature with the material and immaterial heritage of destinations. The promotion and experience of Mafra and of its National Palace, former seasonal residence of the Kings of Portugal, based on the novel Baltasar and Blimunda, by Nobel Prize winner José Saramago, constitutes an extreme case, given the work’s clearly ideological stance and the author’s unorthodox narrative strategy. In order to ascertain the mediation strategies used by tour guides, a qualitative study was designed comprising participant observation of guided tours of the Palace and interviews with the guides involved. Although a challenge for tour guides, the contrasting stance provided by the novel, instead of an obstacle, proved to be highly productive in terms of the strategies used, allowing the guides a far greater discursive freedom than in more traditional visits.