José Saramago

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 http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1998/bio-bibl.html Nobel Prize citation, 1998 as well as an atheist and self-described pessimist.Langer, Adam. "José Saramago: Prophet of Doom." Book Magazine November/December 2002. 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 
TitleYearEnglish titleYearISBNTerra 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 1977Manual of Painting and Calligraphy 1993 Objecto Quase 1978  Levantado do Chão 1980  Viagem a Portugal 1981Journey to Portugal 2000Memorial do Convento 1982Baltasar and Blimunda 1987O Ano da Morte de Ricardo Reis 1986The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis 1991 A Jangada de Pedra 1986The Stone Raft 1994 História do Cerco de Lisboa 1989The History of the Siege of Lisbon1996 O Evangelho Segundo Jesus Cristo 1991The Gospel According to Jesus Christ 1993 Ensaio sobre a Cegueira 1995Blindness 1997 Todos os Nomes 1997All the Names 1999 O Conto da Ilha Desconhecida 1997The Tale of the Unknown Island 1999 A Caverna 2001The Cave 2002 O Homem Duplicado 2003The Double 2004 Ensaio sobre a Lucidez 2004Seeing 2006 Don Giovanni ou o Dissoluto Absolvido 2005  As Intermitências da Morte 2005Death at Intervals 2008 As Pequenas Memórias 2006  

 References 

 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

Category:1922 births
Category:2010 deaths
Category:Portuguese writers
Category:Nobel Prize in Literature winners