José Saramago
José de Sousa Saramago, (pronounced|ʒuˈzɛ sɐɾɐˈmagu; born November 16, 1922; died June 18, 2010) was a Portuguese writer, playwright and journalist.
José de Sousa Saramago | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | November 16, 1922 Azinhaga, Ribatejo, Portugal |
| Died | June 18, 2010 (aged 87) Lanzrote, Spain |
| Occupation | Playwright, Novelist |
| Nationality | Portugal |
| Period | 1947-present |
| Notable works | Baltasar and Blimunda, The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis |
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 [1] as well as an atheist[2] and self-described pessimist.[3] His views have aroused considerable controversy in Portugal, especially after the publication of The Gospel According to Jesus Christ.[4]
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”.
José Saramago Media
José Saramago's ashes burial place
Saramago at Teatro Jorge Eliécer Gaitán in Bogotá in 2007
Saramago by Portuguese painter Carlos Botelho
PRT Order of Saint James of the Sword - Grand Collar BAR
PRT Order of Saint James of the Sword - Commander BAR
PRT Order of Camões - Grand Collar BAR
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
References
- ↑ http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1998/bio-bibl.html Nobel Prize citation, 1998
- ↑ "The God Factor". Archived from the original on 2009-03-06. Retrieved 2008-02-20.
- ↑ Langer, Adam. "José Saramago: Prophet of Doom." Book Magazine November/December 2002.
- ↑ "Austin, Paige. "Shadows on the Wall." The Yale Review of Books Spring 2004". Archived from the original on 2010-09-01. Retrieved 2008-02-20.
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 Archived 2007-04-20 at the Wayback Machine
- Translation of interview with Saramago in El País - 12-Nov-2005