José Saramago

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This name uses Portuguese naming customs. The first or maternal family name is Sousa and the second or paternal family name is Saramago.
José Saramago
GColSE ComSE GColCa
JSJoseSaramago.jpg
Saramago in January 2008
Born José de Sousa Saramago
(1922-11-16)16 November 1922
Azinhaga, Santarém, Portugal
Died Script error: The function "death_date_and_age" does not exist.
Tías, Canary Islands, Spain
Occupation Writer
Nationality Portuguese
Period 1947–2010
Notable works <templatestyles src="Plainlist/styles.css"/>
Notable awards Camões Prize (1995)
Nobel Prize in Literature (1998)
Spouses Ilda Reis (m. 1944; div. 1970)
Pilar del Río (m. 1988)
Partner Isabel da Nóbrega (1968–1986)
Children Violante Saramago
Signature
Website
www.josesaramago.org

José de Sousa Saramago, GColSE ComSE GColCa (Portuguese: [ʒuˈzɛ ðɨ ˈso(w).zɐ sɐɾɐˈmaɣu]; 16 November 1922 – 18 June 2010), was a Portuguese writer and recipient of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Literature for his "parables sustained by imagination, compassion and irony [with which he] continually enables us once again to apprehend an elusory reality."[1] His works, some of which can be seen as allegories, commonly present subversive perspectives on historic events, emphasizing the theopoetic human factor. In 2003 Harold Bloom described Saramago as "the most gifted novelist alive in the world today"[2] and in 2010 said he considers Saramago to be "a permanent part of the Western canon",[3] while James Wood praises "the distinctive tone to his fiction because he narrates his novels as if he were someone both wise and ignorant."[4]

More than two million copies of Saramago's books have been sold in Portugal alone and his work has been translated into 25 languages.[5][6] A proponent of libertarian communism,[7] Saramago criticized institutions such as the Catholic Church, the European Union and the International Monetary Fund. An atheist, he defended love as an instrument to improve the human condition. In 1992, the Government of Portugal under Prime Minister Aníbal Cavaco Silva ordered the removal of one of his works, The Gospel According to Jesus Christ, from the Aristeion Prize's shortlist, claiming the work was religiously offensive. Disheartened by this political censorship of his work,[8] Saramago went into exile on the Spanish island of Lanzarote, where he lived alongside his Spanish wife Pilar del Río until his death in 2010.[9][10]

Saramago was a founding member of the National Front for the Defense of Culture in Lisbon in 1992.

Biography

Early and middle life

Saramago was born in 1922 into a family of very poor landless peasants in Azinhaga, Portugal, a small village in Ribatejo Province, some one hundred kilometers northeast of Lisbon.[9] His parents were José de Sousa and Maria de Piedade. "Saramago", the Portuguese word for Raphanus raphanistrum (wild radish), was the insulting nickname given to his father, and was accidentally incorporated into his name by the village clerk upon registration of his birth.[9]

In 1924, Saramago's family moved to Lisbon, where his father started working as a policeman. A few months after the family moved to the capital, his brother Francisco, older by two years, died. He spent vacations with his grandparents in Azinhaga. When his grandfather suffered a stroke and was to be taken to Lisbon for treatment, Saramago recalled, "He went into the yard of his house, where there were a few trees, fig trees, olive trees. And he went one by one, embracing the trees and crying, saying good-bye to them because he knew he would not return. To see this, to live this, if that doesn't mark you for the rest of your life," Saramago said, "you have no feeling."[11] Although Saramago was a good pupil, his parents were unable to afford to keep him in grammar school, and instead moved him to a technical school at age 12.

After graduating as a lathe operator, he worked as a car mechanic for two years. At this time Saramago had acquired a taste for reading and started to frequent a public library in Lisbon in his free time. He married Ilda Reis, a typist and later artist, in 1944 (they divorced in 1970). Their only daughter, Violante, was born in 1947.[9] By this time he was working in the Social Welfare Service as a civil servant. Later he worked at the publishing company Estúdios Cor as an editor and translator, and then as a journalist. By that time, in 1968, he met and became lover of writer Isabel da Nóbrega, the longtime partner of author and critic João Gaspar Simões. Nóbrega became Saramago's devoted literary mentor, to whom he would later dedicate Memorial do Convento and O Ano da Morte de Ricardo Reis.

After the democratic revolution in 1974, on April 9, 1975, during the rule of Vasco Gonçalves, Saramago became the assistant director of newspaper Diário de Notícias, and the editorial line became clearly pro-communist. A group of 30 journalists - half the editorial staff - handed the board a petition calling for the editorial line to be revised and for it to be published. A plenary was called and, following an angered intervention by Saramago, 24 journalists were expelled, accused of being right-wingers. After the Coup of 25 November 1975 that put an end to the communist PREC, Saramago, in turn, was fired from the newspaper.[12]

Saramago published his first novel, Land of Sin, in 1947. It remained his only published literary work until a poetry book, Possible Poems, was published in 1966. It was followed by another book of poems, Probably Joy, in 1970, three collections of newspaper articles in 1971, 1973 and 1974 respectively, and the long poem The Year of 1993 in 1975. A collection of political writing was published in 1976 under the title Notes. After his dismissal from Diário de Notícias in 1975, Saramago embraced his writing more seriously and the following years he published a series of important works including Manual de Pintura e Caligrafia (1977), Objecto Quase (1978), Levantado do Chão (1980) and Viagem a Portugal (1981).

Later life and international acclaim

Saramago did not achieve widespread recognition and acclaim until he was sixty, with the publication of his fourth novel, Memorial do Convento (1982). A baroque tale set during the Inquisition in 18th-century Lisbon, it tells of the love between a maimed soldier and a young clairvoyant, and of a renegade priest's heretical dream of flight. The novel's translation in 1988 as Baltasar and Blimunda (by Giovanni Pontiero) brought Saramago to the attention of an international readership.[9][13] This novel won the Portuguese PEN Club Award.

Followed by acclaimed novels such as The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis and The History of the Siege of Lisbon, Saramago was hailed by literary critics for his complex yet elegant style, his broad range of references and his wit.[14]

For the former novel Saramago received the British Independent Foreign Fiction Prize. The multilayered The History of the Siege of Lisbon deals with the uncertainty of historical events and includes the story of a middle-aged isolated proofreader who falls in love with his boss. Saramago acknowledged that there is a lot of himself in the protagonist of the novel, and dedicated the novel to his wife.[15]

In 1986 Saramago met a Spanish intellectual and journalist, Pilar del Río, 27 years his junior, and he promptly ended his relationship with Isabel Nóbrega, his partner since 1968.[16] They married in 1988 and remained together until his death in June 2010. Del Río is the official translator of Saramago's books into Spanish.

Saramago joined the Portuguese Communist Party in 1969 and remained a member until the end of his life.[17] He was a self-confessed pessimist.[18] His views aroused considerable controversy in Portugal, especially after the publication of The Gospel According to Jesus Christ.[19] Members of the country's Catholic community were outraged by Saramago's representation of Jesus and particularly God as fallible, even cruel human beings. Portugal's conservative government, led by then-prime minister Aníbal Cavaco Silva, did not allow Saramago's work to compete for the Aristeion Prize,[9] arguing that it offended the Catholic community. As a result, Saramago and his wife moved to Lanzarote, an island in the Canaries.[20]

In 1998 Saramago was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature with the prize motivation: "who with parables sustained by imagination, compassion and irony continually enables us once again to apprehend an elusory reality."[21]

Saramago was expected to speak as the guest of honour at the European Writers' Parliament in 2010, which was convened in Istanbul following a proposal he had co-authored. However, Saramago died before the event took place.[22]

Death and funeral

"Thank you José Saramago", Lisbon, October 2010

Saramago suffered from leukemia. He died on 18 June 2010, aged 87, having spent the last few years of his life in Lanzarote, Spain.[23] His family said that he had breakfast and chatted with his wife and translator Pilar del Río on Friday morning, after which he started feeling unwell and died.[24] The Guardian described him as "the finest Portuguese writer of his generation",[23] while Fernanda Eberstadt of The New York Times said he was "known almost as much for his unfaltering Communism as for his fiction".[5]

Saramago's English language translator, Margaret Jull Costa, paid tribute to him, describing his "wonderful imagination" and calling him "the greatest contemporary Portuguese writer".[23] Saramago had continued his writing until his death. His most recent publication, Claraboia, was published posthumously in 2011. Saramago had suffered from pneumonia a year before his death. Having been thought to have made a full recovery, he had been scheduled to attend the Edinburgh International Book Festival in August 2010.[23]

Portugal declared two days of mourning.[7][8] There were tributes from senior international politicians: Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (Brazil), Bernard Kouchner (France) and José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero (Spain), while Cuba's Raúl and Fidel Castro sent flowers.[7]

Saramago's funeral was held in Lisbon on 20 June 2010, in the presence of more than 20,000 people, many of whom had travelled hundreds of kilometres, but also notably in the absence of right-wing President of Portugal Aníbal Cavaco Silva, who was holidaying in the Azores as the ceremony took place.[25] Cavaco Silva, the Prime Minister who removed Saramago's work from the shortlist of the Aristeion Prize, said he did not attend Saramago's funeral because he "had never had the privilege to know him".[8] Mourners, who questioned Cavaco Silva's absence in the presence of reporters,[8] held copies of the red carnation, symbolic of Portugal's democratic revolution.[25] Saramago's cremation took place in Lisbon,[25] and his ashes were buried on the anniversary of his death, 18 June 2011, underneath a hundred year old olive tree on the square in front of the José Saramago Foundation (Casa dos Bicos).[26]

File:Grave Memorial of José Saramago 04.jpg
José Saramago's ashes burial place

Lost novel

The José Saramago Foundation announced in October 2011 the publication of a so-called "lost novel" published as Skylight (Claraboia in Portuguese). It was written in the 1950s and remained in the archive of a publisher to whom the manuscript had been sent. Saramago remained silent about the work up to his death. The book has been translated into several languages.[27]

Style and themes

Saramago at Teatro Jorge Eliécer Gaitán in Bogotá in 2007

Saramago's experimental style often features long sentences, at times more than a page long. He used periods sparingly, choosing instead a loose flow of clauses joined by commas.[9] Many of his paragraphs extend for pages without pausing for dialogue, (which Saramago chooses not to delimit by quotation marks); when the speaker changes, Saramago capitalizes the first letter of the new speaker's clause. His works often refer to his other works.[9] In his novel Blindness, Saramago completely abandons the use of proper nouns, instead referring to characters simply by some unique characteristic, an example of his style reflecting the recurring themes of identity and meaning found throughout his work.

Saramago's novels often deal with fantastic scenarios. In his 1986 novel The Stone Raft, the Iberian Peninsula breaks off from the rest of Europe and sails around the Atlantic Ocean. In his 1995 novel Blindness, an entire unnamed country is stricken with a mysterious plague of "white blindness". In his 1984 novel The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis (which won the PEN Award and the Independent Foreign Fiction Award), Fernando Pessoa's heteronym survives for a year after the poet himself dies. Additionally, his novel Death with Interruptions (also translated as Death at Intervals) takes place in a country in which, suddenly, nobody dies, and concerns, in part, the spiritual and political implications of the event, although the book ultimately moves from a synoptic to a more personal perspective.

Saramago addresses serious matters with empathy for the human condition and for the isolation of contemporary urban life. His characters struggle with their need to connect with one another, form relations and bond as a community, and also with their need for individuality, and to find meaning and dignity outside of political and economic structures.

When asked to describe his daily writing routine in 2009, Saramago responded, "I write two pages. And then I read and read and read."[28]

Personal life

Saramago by Portuguese painter Carlos Botelho

Saramago was an atheist. The Catholic Church criticised him on numerous occasions due to the content of some of his novels, mainly The Gospel According to Jesus Christ and Cain, in which he uses satire and biblical quotations to present the figure of God in a comical way. The Portuguese government lambasted his 1991 novel O Evangelho Segundo Jesus Cristo (The Gospel according to Jesus Christ) and struck the writer's name from nominees for the European Literature Prize, saying the atheist work offended Portuguese Catholic convictions.

The book portrays a Christ who, subject to human desires, lives with Mary Magdalene and tries to back out of the crucifixion.[29] Following the Swedish Academy's decision to present Saramago with the Nobel Prize in Literature, the Vatican questioned the decision on political grounds, though gave no comment on the aesthetic or literary components of Saramago's work. Saramago responded: "The Vatican is easily scandalized, especially by people from outside. They should just focus on their prayers and leave people in peace. I respect those who believe, but I have no respect for the institution."[6]

Saramago was a member of the Communist Party of Portugal,[10] and in his late years defined himself as a proponent of libertarian communism.[7] He ran in the 1989 Lisbon local election as part of the "Coalition For Lisbon," and was elected alderman presiding officer of the Municipal Assembly of Lisbon.[30] Saramago was also a candidate of the Democratic Unity Coalition in all elections of the European Parliament from 1989 to 2009, though he ran for positions of which it was thought he had no possibility of winning.[30] He was a critic of European Union (EU) and International Monetary Fund (IMF) policies.[9]

Many of his novels are acknowledged as political satire of a subtle kind. It is in The Notebook that Saramago makes his political convictions most clear. The book, written from a Marxist perspective, is a collection of blog entries from September 2008 to August 2009. According to The Independent, "Saramago aims to cut through the web of 'organized lies' surrounding humanity, and to convince readers by delivering his opinions in a relentless series of unadorned, knock-down prose blows."[31] His political engagement has led to comparisons with George Orwell. [32]

When speaking to The Observer in 2006, Saramago said he "believe[s] that we all have some influence, not because of the fact that one is an artist, but because we are citizens. As citizens, we all have an obligation to intervene and become involved, it's the citizen who changes things. I can't imagine myself outside any kind of social or political involvement."[33]

During the Second Intifada, while visiting Ramallah in March 2002, Saramago said that "what is happening in Palestine is a crime we can put on the same plane as what happened at Auschwitz ... A sense of impunity characterises the Israeli people and its army. They have turned into rentiers of the Holocaust."[4] Some critics of this statement claimed that it was antisemitic.[10][34][35] Six months later, Saramago clarified. "To have said that Israel's action is to be condemned, that war crimes are being perpetrated – really the Israelis are used to that. It doesn't bother them. But there are certain words they can't stand. And to say 'Auschwitz' there ... note well, I didn't say that Ramallah was the same as Auschwitz, that would be stupid. What I said was that the spirit of Auschwitz was present in Ramallah. We were eight writers. They all made condemning statements, Wole Soyinka, Breyten Breytenbach, Vincenzo Consolo and others. But the Israelis weren't bothered about those. It was the fact that I put my finger in the Auschwitz wound that made them jump."[4]

During the 2006 Lebanon War, Saramago joined Tariq Ali, John Berger, Noam Chomsky, and others in condemning what they characterized as "a long-term military, economic and geographic practice whose political aim is nothing less than the liquidation of the Palestinian nation".[36]

He was also a supporter of Iberian Federalism. In a 2008 press conference for the filming of Blindness he asked, in reference to the Great Recession, "Where was all that money poured on markets? Very tight and well kept; then suddenly it appears to save what? lives? no, banks." He added, "Marx was never so right as now", and predicted "the worst is still to come."[37]

Awards and accolades

Nobel Prize in Literature

The Swedish Academy selected Saramago as 1998 recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature. The announcement came when he was about to fly to Germany for the Frankfurt Book Fair, and caught both him and his editor by surprise.[9] The Nobel committee praised his "parables sustained by imagination, compassion and irony", and his "modern skepticism" about official truths.[13]

Decorations

The José Saramago Foundation

The José Saramago Foundation was founded by José Saramago in June 2007, with the aim to defend and spread the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the promotion of culture in Portugal just like in all the countries, and protection of the environment.[41] The José Saramago Foundation is located in the historic Casa dos Bicos in the city of Lisbon.

List of works

Title Year English title Year ISBN
Terra do Pecado 1947 Land of Sin ISBN 972-21-1145-0
Os Poemas Possíveis 1966 Possible Poems
Provavelmente Alegria 1970 Probably Joy
Deste Mundo e do Outro 1971 This World and the Other
A Bagagem do Viajante 1973 The Traveller's Baggage
As Opiniões que o DL teve 1974 Opinions that DL had
O Ano de 1993 1975 The Year of 1993
Os Apontamentos 1976 The Notes
Manual de Pintura e Caligrafia 1977 Manual of Painting and Calligraphy 1993 ISBN 1-85754-043-3
Objecto Quase 1978 The Lives of Things 2012 ISBN 9781781680865
Levantado do Chão 1980 Raised from the Ground 2012 ISBN 9780099531777
Viagem a Portugal 1981 Journey to Portugal 2000 ISBN 0-15-100587-7
Memorial do Convento 1982 Baltasar and Blimunda 1987 ISBN 0-15-110555-3
O Ano da Morte de Ricardo Reis 1984 The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis 1991 ISBN 0-15-199735-7
A Jangada de Pedra 1986 The Stone Raft 1994 ISBN 0-15-185198-0
História do Cerco de Lisboa 1989 The History of the Siege of Lisbon 1996 ISBN 0-15-100238-X
O Evangelho Segundo Jesus Cristo 1991 The Gospel According to Jesus Christ 1993 ISBN 0-15-136700-0
In Nomine Dei 1993 In Nomine Dei 1993 ISBN 9788571643284
Ensaio sobre a Cegueira 1995 Blindness 1997 ISBN 0-15-100251-7
Todos os Nomes 1997 All the Names 1999 ISBN 0-15-100421-8
O Conto da Ilha Desconhecida 1997 The Tale of the Unknown Island 1999 ISBN 0-15-100595-8
A Caverna 2000 The Cave 2002 ISBN 0-15-100414-5
A Maior Flor do Mundo 2001 Children's Picture Book
O Homem Duplicado 2002 The Double 2004 ISBN 0-15-101040-4
Ensaio sobre a Lucidez 2004 Seeing 2006 ISBN 0-15-101238-5
Don Giovanni ou O Dissoluto Absolvido 2005 Don Giovanni, or, Dissolute Acquitted
As Intermitências da Morte 2005 Death with Interruptions 2008 ISBN 1-84655-020-3
As Pequenas Memórias 2006 Small Memories 2010 ISBN 978-0-15-101508-5
A Viagem do Elefante 2008 The Elephant's Journey 2010 ISBN 978-972-21-2017-3
Caim 2009 Cain 2011 ISBN 978-607-11-0316-1
Claraboia 2011 Skylight 2014 ISBN 9780544570375

See also

References

  1. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  2. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  3. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 8.3 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 9.3 9.4 9.5 9.6 9.7 9.8 9.9 Quoted in: Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 "Nobel-winning Portuguese novelist Saramago dies", Associated Press 18-06-2010
  11. ↑ [1] Archived December 15, 2010, at the Wayback Machine
  12. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  14. ↑ The History of the Siege of Lisbon by José Saramago Kirkus Reviews 1 May 1997
  15. ↑ José Saramago, The Art of Fiction No. 155 Paris Review 1998
  16. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  17. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  18. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  19. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  20. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  21. ↑ José Saramago Biography Nobel Prize.org
  22. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  23. ↑ 23.0 23.1 23.2 23.3 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  24. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  25. ↑ 25.0 25.1 25.2 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  26. ↑ Cinzas de Saramago são depositadas aos pés de uma oliveira, em Lisboa UOL (18 de junho de 2011).
  27. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  28. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  29. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  30. ↑ 30.0 30.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  31. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  32. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  33. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  34. ↑ De las piedras de David a los tanques de Goliat by José Saramago, El País 21/Abril/2002 (in Spanish).
  35. ↑ "Bigotry in Print. Crowds Chant Murder. Something's Changed" Archived 2010-01-12 at the Wayback Machine by Paul Berman, The Forward (available online here) May 24, 2002.
  36. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  37. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  38. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  39. ↑ 39.0 39.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  40. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  41. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.

Further reading

  • Baptista Bastos, José Saramago: Aproximação a um retrato, Dom Quixote, 1996
  • T.C. Cerdeira da Silva, Entre a história e a ficção: 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
  • B. Losada, Eine iberische Stimme, Liber, 2, 1, 1990, 3
  • Pires, Filipe. “Os provérbios por detrás da escrita em In Nomine Dei, de José Saramago. / Proverbs Behind the Writing in José Saramago’s In Nomine Dei”. Proceedings of the Fourteenth Interdisciplinary Colloquium on Proverbs, 2nd to 8th November 2020, at Tavira, Portugal, edited by Rui J.B. Soares, and Outi Lauhakangas, Tavira: Tipografia Tavirense, 2021, pp. 361-394.
  • Carlos Reis, Diálogos com José Saramago, Ed. Caminho, Lisboa, 1998
  • M. Maria Seixo, O essential sobre José Saramago, Imprensa Nacional, 1987
  • "Saramago, José (1922–2010)". 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.
  • Sereno, M.H.S., 2005. Proverbial style in novelistic José Saramago. Estudos em Homenagem ao Professor Doutor Mário Vilela, vol. 2 p.657-665. Universidade do Porto. (accessible as part of larger volume)

External links

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