José Saramago

**José de Sousa Saramago**, (pronounced|ʒuˈzɛ sɐɾɐˈmagu; born November 16, 1922; died June 18, 2010) was a Portuguese writer, playwright and journalist.

Saramago was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1998. He lived on Lanzarote in the Canary Islands, Spain.

## Biography

Saramago was born into a family of landless peasants in Azinhaga, Portugal, a small village in the province of Ribatejo some hundred kilometers north-east of Lisbon.

Saramago married Ilda Reis in 1944. Their only child, Violante, was born in 1947. Since 1988, Saramago has been married to the Spanish journalist Pilar del Río, who is the official translator of his books into Spanish.

José Saramago was in his mid-fifties before he had international success; his novel _Baltasar and Blimunda_ brought him an international readership. This novel won the Portuguese PEN Club Award.

Saramago was a member of the Portuguese Communist Party from 1969, until his death  as well as an atheist and self-described pessimist. His views have aroused considerable controversy in Portugal, especially after the publication of _The Gospel According to Jesus Christ_.

## Themes

Saramago uses for his works fantastic scenarios. In his 1986 novel, _The Stone Raft_, the Iberian Peninsula breaks off from the rest of Europe and sails about the Atlantic Ocean. In his 1995 novel, _Blindness_, an entire country is stricken with a mysterious plague called “white blindness”.

## Bibliography

|Title||Year||English title||Year||ISBN|
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
|_Terra do Pecado_|1947||||||||
|_Os Poemas Possíveis_|1966||||||||
|_Provavelmente Alegria_|1970||||||||
|_Deste Mundo e do Outro_|1971||||||||
|_A Bagagem do Viajante_|1973||||||||
|_As Opiniões que o DL teve_|1974||||||||
|_O Ano de 1993_|1975||||||||
|_Os Apontamentos_|1976||||||||
|_Manual de Pintura e Caligrafia_|1977|_Manual of Painting and Calligraphy_|1993||||||
|_Objecto Quase_|1978||||||||
|_Levantado do Chão_|1980||||||||
|_Viagem a Portugal_|1981|_Journey to Portugal_|2000||||||
|_Memorial do Convento_|1982|_Baltasar and Blimunda_|1987||||||
|_O Ano da Morte de Ricardo Reis_|1986|_The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis_|1991||||||
|_A Jangada de Pedra_|1986|_The Stone Raft_|1994||||||
|_História do Cerco de Lisboa_|1989|_The History of the Siege of Lisbon_|1996||||||
|_O Evangelho Segundo Jesus Cristo_|1991|_The Gospel According to Jesus Christ_|1993||||||
|_Ensaio sobre a Cegueira_|1995|_Blindness_|1997||||||
|_Todos os Nomes_|1997|_All the Names_|1999||||||
|_O Conto da Ilha Desconhecida_|1997|_The Tale of the Unknown Island_|1999||||||
|_A Caverna_|2001|_The Cave_|2002||||||
|_O Homem Duplicado_|2003|_The Double_|2004||||||
|_Ensaio sobre a Lucidez_|2004|_Seeing_|2006||||||
|_Don Giovanni ou o Dissoluto Absolvido_|2005||||||||
|_As Intermitências da Morte_|2005|_Death at Intervals_|2008||||||
|_As Pequenas Memórias_|2006||||||||

### Bibliography

- Baptista Bastos, _José Saramago : Aproximação a um retrato_, Dom Quixote, 1996
- T.C. Cerdeira da Silva, _Entre a história e aficção : Uma saga de portugueses_, Dom Quixote, 1989
- Maria da Conceição Madruga, _A paixão segundo José Saramago : a paixão do verbo e o verbo da paixão_, Campos das Letras, Porto, 1998
- Horácio Costa, _José Saramago : O Período Formativo_, Ed. Caminho, 1998
- Helena I. Kaufman, _Ficção histórica portuguesa da pós-revolução_, Madison, 1991
- O. Lopes, _Os sinais e os sentidos : Literatura portuguesa do século XX_, Lisboa, 1986
- Carlos Reis, _Diálogos com José Saramago_, Ed. Caminho, Lisboa, 1998
- M. Maria Seixo, _O essencial sobre José Saramago_, Imprensa Nacional, 1987
- "Saramago, José (1922-)." Encyclopedia of World Biography. Ed. Tracie Ratiner. Vol. 25. 2nd ed. Detroit: Thomson Gale, 2005. Discovering Collection. Thomson Gale. University of Guelph. 25 Sep. 2007

## Other websites

- The Unexpected Fantasist, a portrait of José Saramago, written by Fernanda Eberstadt and published August 26, 2007 in _The New York Times Magazine_
- Introduction and video of Saramago from "Heroes de los dos bandos" -spanish civil war-
- Interviews with Saramago in video
- José Saramago from Pegasos
- Translation of interview with Saramago in El País - 12-Nov-2005

## Infobox (writer)

- **name**: José de Sousa Saramago
- **image**: JSJoseSaramago.jpg
- **imagesize**: 250px
- **birth place**: Azinhaga, Ribatejo, Portugal
- **death place**: Lanzrote, Spain
- **occupation**: Playwright, Novelist
- **nationality**: Portugal
- **period**: 1947-present
- **notableworks**: Baltasar and Blimunda, The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis