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Revision as of 01:34, 22 September 2004
José Saramago (born November 16, 1922, Azinhaga, Portugal) is a writer, playwright, and journalist. He usually presents subversive perspectives of historical events in his works, trying to underline the human factor behind historical events, instead of presenting the usual official historical narratives. Some works of his can also be seen as allegories.
He was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1998. He currently lives on Lanzarote in the Canary Islands. Saramago has been a member of the Communist Party of Portugal since 1969, as well as an atheist and self-described pessimist - his positions have aroused considerable controversy in Portugal, especially after the publication of The Gospel According to Jesus Christ.
In his 2003 book, Genius: A Mosaic of One Hundred Exemplary Creative Minds, the American literary critic Harold Bloom named Saramago as "the most gifted novelist alive in the world today." Referring to him as "the master," he said he's "one of the last titans of an expiring literary genre."
Biography
Family History
Saramago's father was José de Sousa and his mother was Maria da Piedade. De Souza served in World War I. He was a farmer, but moved his family to Lisbon in 1924 and became a policeman. Saramago's two-year-old brother, Francisco, died within a few months of the move to Lisbon.
Saramago married Ilda Reis in 1944. Their only child, Violante, was born in 1947.
Style
Saramago tends to write long sentences, using punctuation that most of us have been taught is incorrect. He uses no quotation marks to delimit dialog. Many of his "sentences" can be a page long or more, as he uses commas where most writers would place periods. Many of his paragraphs match the length of some authors' chapters. Surprisingly, it does not take most readers long to become adjusted to reading his unique style of prose.
Quotes
On the US$950,000 nobel prize that he recently won: "This prize is for all speakers of Portuguese, but while we're on the subject, I shall keep the money."
Bibliography
- 1977 - Manual de Pintura e Caligrafia Manual of Painting and Calligraphy
- 1978 - Objecto Quase Quasi Objects
- 1981 - Viagem a Portugal Journey to Portugal
- 1982 - Baltasar and Blimunda
- 1984 - Ano da Morte de Ricardo Reis (O) The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis (A Tribute to Fernando Pessoa)
- 1986 - Jangada de Pedra (A) The Stone Raft
- 1989 - História do Cerco de Lisboa The History of the Siege of Lisbon
- 1991 - The Gospel According to Jesus Christ
- 1995 - Blindness (novel)
- 1997 - Todos os Nomes All the Names
- 1999 - The Tale of the Unknown Island
- 2001 - The Cave
- 2004 - The Double
Claims of anti-Semitism
Commenting on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Saramago recently stated that Jews no longer deserve "sympathy for the suffering they went through during the Holocaust. . . . Living under the shadows of the Holocaust and expecting to be forgiven for anything they do on behalf of what they have suffered seems abusive to me. They didn't learn anything from the suffering of their parents and grandparents." The Anti-Defamation League (ADL), a Jewish civil-rights group, has characterized these remarks as being anti-Semitic. To wit, Abraham Foxman, director of the ADL stated, "Jose Saramago's comments are incendiary, deeply offensive, and show an ignorance of the issues that suggest a bias against the Jews."
References
- Portuguese Nobel Laureate's Remarks on Jews and the Holocaust Are "Incendiary and Offensive" (ADL Press Release, October 15, 2003).