Article: Spain
Section: Literature

Question: Which languages did José Saramago speak?

The earliest recorded examples of a vernacular Romance-based literature date from the same time and location, the rich mix of Muslim, Jewish, and Christian cultures in Muslim Spain, in which Maimonides, Averroes, and others worked, The Jarchas.
During the Reconquista, the epic poem Cantar de Mio Cid was written about a real man—his battles, conquests, and daily life.
Other major plays from the medival times were Mester de Juglaría, Mester de Clerecía, Coplas por la muerte de su padre or The Book of Good Love.
During the Renaissance the major plays are La Celestina and El Lazarillo de Tormes, while many religious literature was created with poets as Luis de León, San Juan de la Cruz, Santa Teresa de Jesús, etc.
The Baroque is the most important period for Spanish culture.
We are in the times of the Spanish Empire.
The famous Don Quijote de La Mancha by Miguel de Cervantes was written in this time.
Other writers from the period are: Francisco de Quevedo, Lope de Vega, Calderón de la Barca or Tirso de Molina.
During the Enlightenment we find names as Leandro Fernández de Moratín, Benito Jerónimo Feijóo, Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos or Leandro Fernández de Moratín.
During the Romanticism, José Zorrilla created one of the most emblematic figures in European literature in Don Juan Tenorio.
Other writers from this period are Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer, José de Espronceda, Rosalía de Castro or Mariano José de Larra.in the Realism we find names as Benito Pérez Galdós, Emilia Pardo Bazán, Leopoldo Alas (Clarín) or Vicente Blasco Ibáñez and Menéndez Pelayo.
Realism offered depictions of contemporary life and society 'as they were'.
In the spirit of general "Realism," Realist authors opted for depictions of everyday and banal activities and experiences, instead of a romanticized or similarly stylized presentation.
The Generation of 1898 The destruction of Spain's fleet in Cuba by U.S. gunboats in 1898 provoked a general cultural crisis in Spain.
The "Disaster" of 1898 led established writers to seek practical political, economic, and social solutions in essays grouped under the literary heading of "Regeneracionismo."
For a group of younger writers, among them Miguel de Unamuno, Pío Baroja, and José Martínez Ruiz (Azorín), the Disaster and its cultural repercussions inspired a deeper, more radical literary shift that affected both form and content.
These writers, along with Ramón del Valle-Inclán, Antonio Machado, Ramiro de Maeztu, and Ángel Ganivet, came to be known as the 'Generation of 98.
'The Generation of 1914 or Novecentismo The next supposed “generation” of Spanish writers following those of ´98 already calls into question the value of such terminology.
By the year 1914—the year of the outbreak of the First World War and of the publication of the first major work of the generation's leading voice, José Ortega y Gasset—a number of slightly younger writers had established their own place within the Spanish cultural field.
Leading voices include the poet Juan Ramón Jiménez, the academics and essayists Ramón Menéndez Pidal, Gregorio Marañon, Manuel Azaña, Eugeni d'Ors, and Ortega y Gasset, and the novelists Gabriel Miró, Ramón Pérez de Ayala, and Ramón Gómez de la Serna.
While still driven by the national and existential questions that obsessed the writers of ´98, they approached these topics with a greater sense of distance and objectivity.
The Generation of 1927, where poets Pedro Salinas, Jorge Guillén, Federico García Lorca, Vicente Aleixandre, Dámaso Alonso.
All were scholars of their national literary heritage, again evidence of the impact of the calls of “Regeneracionistas” and the Generation of 1898 for Spanish intelligence to turn at least partially inwards.
The two main writers in the second half of the 20th century were the Nobel Prize in Literature laureate Camilo José Cela and Miguel Delibes.
Spain is one of the countries with the most number of laureates with the Nobel Prize in Literature, and with latinamerican laureates they made the spanish language literature one of the most laureates of all.
The spanish writers are: José Echegaray, Jacinto Benavente, Juan Ramón Jiménez, Vicente Aleixandre and Camilo José Cela.
The Portuguese writer José Saramago, also awarded with the prize, lived for many years in Spain and was Portuguese and spanish speaker.
He also was well known by his iberist ideas.