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José Saramago (1922 – 2010) Portugal
Nobel Prize for Literature in 1998
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José
Saramago was born in 1922. He was devoted exclusively to writing since 1976.
Numerous awards bear witness to the importance of his œuvre.
Among those he received are the Comendador da Ordem Militar de Santiago da
Espada presented by the Portuguese government, the Chevalier de
l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres presented by the French government, plus
honorary doctorates from various universities including Torino, Manchester,
Sevilla, Toledo, Bordeaux, Dartmouth and Coimbra.
Saramago’s work depicts history with all its
developments and chance events. He looked at and questions things from a
different angle and always took the wishes and hopes of ordinary people into
account.
After
having received the Prêmio Camões in 1995, the most significant
literary award of the Portuguese speaking world, Saramago was honoured with the
Nobel Prize of Literature in 1998,
the first Nobel Prize for a work in Portuguese. The Swedes knew what they were doing when
they honored Saramago. He may be the world’s greatest living novelist (KIRKUS REVIEWS). And Edmund White of THE
NEW YORK TIMES wrote: No candidate for a Nobel Prize has a better claim to
lasting recognition than this novelist.
The film Blindness, adapted by Don McKellar
from José Saramago's novel Ensaio sobre a cegueira and directed by Fernando Meirelles, was
selected to open the Cannes Film Festival 2008.
In Terra
do pecado ("Land of Sin"), José Saramago tells us the story of
Maria Leonor who, after losing her husband, becomes a victim of the strict
conventions ruling in the Ribatejo region in the second half of the 19th
century. The novel is already written with the exquisite psychological depth and
epic language that characterise the author.
With his Memorial
do convento (“Baltasar and Blimunda”) Saramago had a breakthrough on an
international level in 1983. Many years and several novels later, after the
controversial Evangelho segundo Jesus Cristo (“The Gospel according to
Jesus Christ”), Saramago raises the question of the essence of human existence,
of good and evil, and of what is behind the cultivated facade in Ensaio
sobre a cegueira (“Blindness”), a story which introduces a new stage
in the author’s œuvre.
Together with Ensaio sobre a cegueira and Todos os nomes (“All
the Names”) the novel A Caverna (“The Cave”) forms a triptych in
which the author presents his view of the world in allegories.
José Saramago always has been audaciously inventive
as a novelist. Blindness is his most surprising and
disturbing book. It is a fantasy so persuasive as to shock the reader into
realizing how fragile and contingent our social conditions always have been and
will be. This novel will endure.
Harold Bloom
A
maior flor do mundo ("The Biggest Flower in the World") is both
a great story for children and a one hundred percent piece of Saramago's work.
The
author plays with his readers, telling this tale as if it were not really a
story but only a draft of what would have been if the little boy protagonist
were indeed able to turn a normal flower into one as big as a house. His
readers learn that this will always remain a fantasy, while at the same time
they see literature as a way to achieve the impossible. Following another
brilliant idea, Saramago becomes a character in his own story.
The
book was adapted into a animated film in 2007 and
nominated for the Goya, which is the most prestigious film prize in Spain. The
film has already been shown at many festivals as well as at the MOMA in New
York.
In 2002
Saramago chose the well known doppelgänger motif in his novel O homem duplicado (“The Double”).
Tertuliano Máximo Afonso, a history teacher, is in despair of his drab everyday
life. Profession and work are taking possession of me and not I of them. His colleague recommends renting a movie for
cheering up. Tertuliano follows his advice and to his great surprise he
discovers an actor in the film who, to an intriguing extent, not only resembles
him but is confusingly alike in gesture, voice and stature. He understandably
feels the existence of the other to be an unsettling provocation and wants to
find out who this perplexingly similar actor is. Finally, he learns that the
other man lives in the same town. The meeting of the two has unforeseen
consequences....
At times
reality catches up with fiction. Ensaio sobre a lucidez (“Seeing”) ties
in with the previous novel Blindness. In a city not further specified,
the people are going to the polls. However, they are prevailingly returning
blank ballots. A mandatory second election turns out even more catastrophic.
The government sees the white ballot as an “attack on the foundations of
democracy”, declares a state of emergency and reacts
with repression. With irony the author portrays the arrogance of power. The
population offers resistance and resorts to self help. There is no happy ending
– and with this parable the question remains, what a democracy nowadays is
capable of and what it should achieve.
The next day,
no one died. These are the opening words of the novel As intermitências da morte (“Death at
Intervals”). In a small country people no longer die, they seem to have arrived
at eternity. However, after an initial euphoria about the supposed immortality
it soon becomes apparent that life without death has unimagined consequences.
With habitual irony, the once again omniscient narrator portrays a society
which has to make do without death. The old and sick are no longer redeemed and
the church can no longer speak of a life beyond. After a few months, however,
death reports back. Now though, it dispatches letters in violet envelopes, in
which it announces the time of death to its recipient. The reactions of the
people are diverse – some celebrate the last days of their lives, others make
provisions for an orderly bequest. The funeral industry is revived and
hospitals and care homes are back to their routine. One of the letters
addressed to a cellist seems unclaimed. Death dresses up as an attractive woman
and looks for the musician to deliver the letter by hand. However, death falls
in love with life – but there is no life without death.
With a patient, ironizing
intelligence comparable to Musil’s, José Saramago builds up the haunting and
haunted Lisbon of his The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis. This is a
major political novel which also throws sharp light on one of the oldest and
apparently eroded of themes: the intimacies between the creation of poetry and
death.
TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT
As pequenas memórias
(“Small
Memories”) is a book that Saramago’s readers have been waiting for for a long
time. Let yourself be carried away by the child you once were, this is how the
epigraph to the book runs, cited with a knowing wink from his imaginary book, The Book of Counsels.
Saramago describes his childhood and
youth to the age of 15. His family, surviving on the modest income brought in
by his father’s hard manual labour, moved from a small Alentejo village to
Lisbon when José was eighteen months old. But he always went back to spend his
holidays at his grandparents’ house in Azinhaga: when he arrived, the first
thing he had to do was take his shoes off, only to put them on again weeks
later.
On the 16th November 2006 the
village was the scene of a major event: the 84th birthday of its
most famous son was marked with the celebratory launch of As pequenas memórias. When asked about the great
international interest in his book, Saramago himself has stated: Our childhood
explains a lot about who we are, and maybe for this reason my Small Memories is of interest to
those who want to get a better idea of who I am, where I come from, where my
roots lie.
A viagem do elefante
(“The Elephant's Journey”) is set in the 16th century, when the Portuguese king
and his wife have the idea of giving Charlemagne's son-in-law a very unusual
wedding present: Salomão the elephant, who came to them from Goa two years ago
and has since been leading a rather unnoticed existence in Lisbon. Once letters
have been exchanged and Maximilian is prepared to accept the gift, a long
caravan sets off for his court in Valladolid. From there, they will have to
make their way to the coast, to Italy by boat and finally, after crossing the
Alps, to Vienna. The mahout Subhro and his elephant turn out to be unseparable
friends.
With loving
and entertaining detail, Saramago describes the elephant's journey and how
friendship and solidarity make life worth living, even when others have the say
over its every aspect. The powerful representatives of the state and the Church
are not spared many an ironic sideswipe, and are portrayed as what they
ultimately are – people with failings and weaknesses. Taking historical facts
as his starting point, Saramago tells the stories of those who have not found
their way into the history books, and he does so with his very characteristic
eye, recognising the greatness in the details and the details in the greatness.
In his last
completed novel Caim
("Cain"), Saramago takes his readers on a journey into the biblical
world - as in O Evangelho segundo Jesus
Cristo, only this time to the Old Testament. The protagonist he chooses is Cain who kills his brother Abel as we
recall, going down in biblical history as the greatest sinner. At this point,
Saramago takes a critical look at our image of God and poses the question of
guilt and sin anew: why did the lord favour Abel, even though Cain made just as
much effort to please him? Was it not God himself who indirectly caused the
murder? Taken further: why does man subject himself to an image of God and
construct rules around it that let us plan inhumane deeds - like sacrificing
his own son, in Abraham's case - and
carry them out throughout our history?
With
razor-sharp irony and frequently slapstick-style humour, Saramago sends Cain
through the Old Testament. The highlights of the novel are witty dialogues
between God and his rebellious creations, such as Cain himself or his
emancipated mother Eve, who presents herself to the lord as the First Lady of
Paradise. The writer makes his readers laugh - and then think.
Saramago
wrote this novel almost in a state of trance, in just four months. The result
is a densely woven text full of the joy of storytelling, questioning our
beliefs - and brimming over with humour.
O Caderno
("The Notebook") is a compilation of articles of the author's popular
blog where he commented on political and cultural events and shares other
impressions with his readers. The first volume includes entries from the very
beginning until March 2009.
The second
volume of O Caderno brings together the author's blog articles written
until November 2009. Just like the articles published in the previous volume,
this latest publication is made up of Saramago's opinions on current affairs,
on life, politics and culture. Precise observations and moments of arresting
significance are rendered with pointillist detail, which, when placed together,
demonstrate an acute understanding of our times. The first volume sparked
considerable controversy, particularly in Italy, for its open criticism of the
Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and held its position on the
best-seller lists for several weeks.
O silêncio da água ("The
Silence of the Water") can be read as a children's book and is an extract
from As pequenas memórias ("Small
Memories"). In this volume, wonderfully illustrated by Manuel Estrada,
Saramago tells the story of himself as a little boy. Standing on the banks of
the river Tejo, young José lets a big fish escape. This experience is the
starting point of this beautiful tale – and of the author's philosophical
awakening.
Saramago's
novel Claraboia
(“Skylight”), written in 1953 but never published until now, tells the
mosaic-like story of different tenants in an apartment house in Lisbon striving
to make the best of their lives. Among them is the young lodger Abel, who has
just moved in and has a different view on people's everyday concerns. Touching
his readers with his characters' humanity and already using the epic language
for which he would come to be known, the Nobel laureate has once more achieved
a timeless masterpiece.
A story that leaves us with the sensation of a
backwards discovery: a young author about to be born when a great writer has
just passed away.
Time Out
The recovery of this work means a great opportunity
for approaching Saramago’s world.
Rolling Stone
Other
insights into José Saramago’s life and work are offered by his intimate friend
and biographer Fernando Gómez Aguilera
in José Saramago: La consistencia de los
sueños. Biografía cronológica (“José Saramago: The Consistency of Dreams. Chronological Biography”) and José
Saramago en sus palabras (“José Saramago in his Own Words”).
For more
details, please visit: Fernando Gómez
Aguilera.
Impenitently
enraged and tender.
Umberto Eco
The
most gifted novelist in the world today.
Harold Bloom
Saramago is a writer, like Faulkner, so confident of
his resources and ultimative destination that he can bring any improbability to
life.
John Updike
Saramago is
one of Europe’s most original and remarkable writers [...]. His writing is
imbued with a spirit of comic inquiry, meditative pessimism and a quietly
transforming energy that turns the indefinite into the unforgetable.
LOS ANGELES TIMES
Il
est un des rares romanciers contemporains à penser son texte comme une
véritable machinerie romanesque: l’architecture soigneusement étudiée, assez complexe,
de ses livres leur confie un ressort très proche des meilleurs romans
d’énigmes, dont la construction, on le sait, est absolument décisive.
LIBÉRATION
He got ahead of us; he is ahead of us. His work
belongs to our future. I take comfort in this.
Ursula K Le Guin
For news on the author, you are welcome to visit the site of the José
Saramago Foundation at http://blog.josesaramago.org
Saramago’s works are published by Editorial Caminho, Lisbon and have
been translated in over 40 languages and more than 60 countries around the
world. For more detailed information on translations please contact us.
Novels:
1947 Terra do pecado
1977 Manual de pintura
e caligrafia
1980 Levantado do
chão
1982 Memorial do
Convento
1984 O ano da morte
de Ricardo Reis
1986 A jangada de
pedra
1988 História do cerco
de Lisboa
1991 O evangelho
segundo Jesus Cristo
1995 Ensaio sobre
a cegueira
1997 Todos os nomes
2000 A Caverna
2002 O homem duplicado
2004 Ensaio sobre
a lucidez
2005 As intermitências
da morte
2006 As pequenas memórias
2008 A viagem do elefante
2009 Caim
2011 Claraboia
(written in 1953)
Poetry:
1966 Os poemas possíveis
1970 Provavelmente
alegria
Essays/Short prose/Short stories:
1971 Deste mundo e
do outro
1973 A bagagem do viajante
1974 As opiniões
que o DL teve
1975 O ano de 1993
1976 Os apontamentos
1978 Objecto quase
1981 Viagem a
Portugal
1997
Conto da ilha desconhecida
2009 O caderno
Blog September 2008 – March 2009
2010 O caderno 2
Blog March 2009 - November 2009
Plays:
1979 A noite
1980 Que farei com
este livro?
1987 A segunda vida
de Francisco de Assis
1993 In nomine dei (-->Opera "Divara", Münster 1993)
Diaries:
Cadernos
de Lanzarote I - V (1994 – 1998)
For children:
2001 A maior flor
do mundo
2011 O
silêncio da água (Extract from As
Pequenas Memórias)
Awards
(Selection):
1985 Critics'
Award of the Portuguese Critics' Association
1986 Dom Dinis
Award, Casa de Mateus Foundation
1987 Grinzane-Cavour
Award, Alba/Italy
1991 Grande Prêmio de Romance e Novela da Associação
Portuguesa de Escritores (APE) relativo
a 1991
1992 International
Literary Prize "Mondello" (Palermo)
1992 Literary
Prize "Brancatti" (Zasserana /Sicilia)
1993 The
Independent Foreign Fiction Award, United Kingdom
1993 "Vida
Literária" Award of the Portuguese Writers Association (APE)
1995 Prémio
Consagração SPA
1995 Prémio Camões
1998 National
Prize for Prose Città di Penne (Italy)
1998 Prémio
Europeu de Comunicação Jordi Xifra Heras (Girona)
1998 Nobel Prize
for Literature
2001 Premio
Canarias Internacional
2005 Hijo
predilecto de la Provincia de Granada
2006 Premio
Dolores Ibarruri
2007 Hijo
predilecto de Andalucía
2009 Premio Caja
Granda de Cooperación Internacional
For the
complete list you are welcome to visit the site of the José Saramago Foundation.