José Saramago

Portuguese novelist (1922-2010) · Portugal · Writers · Died at 87

José Saramago is read about 1,651 times a day, in 110 languages.

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The Portuguese novelist who turned Bible stories into blasphemy trials and history into subversive fable - his government pulled one of his books from prize contention for offending the Church, so he left the country. Harold Bloom called him the most gifted novelist alive.

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A life in dates

2021Grand Collar of the Order of CamõesAward2010Died18 June 20102005“...I'm not able to fear death... We will all turn skeletons and everything shall end. The skeleton becomes, therefore, the most radical form of nudity.”In their wordsÉPOCA Interview (in Portuguese), São Paulo, 2005.Read the whole statement

“I'm not pessimistic. It is the world that is terrible.”In their wordsÉPOCA Interview (in Portuguese), São Paulo, 2005.Read the whole statement

2004America Award in LiteratureAward2003“[The Jewish people no longer deserves] sympathy for the suffering it went through during the Holocaust.”In their words15 October 2003Quoted in News Brief, Jewish Telegraphic Agency, October 15, 2003.Read the whole statement

“The human being should be the absolute priority. It seems it is more important to reach the planet Mars than prevent 13 million Africans dying of hunger.”In their wordsQuoted in New African (IC Magazines Limited, 2003), p. 25.Read the whole statement

2001“Sometimes I say that writing a novel is the same as constructing a chair: a person must be able to sit in it, to be balanced on it. If I can produce a great chair, even better.”In their wordsJune 2001Interview with Katherine Vaz, José Saramago, BOMB Magazine, June 2001.Read the whole statement

Honorary Doctorate of the University of GranadaAward2000Honorary Doctorate of the University of SalamancaAward1999Honorary Doctorate of the Bordeaux Montaigne UniversityAwardHonorary Doctorate of the Polytechnic University of ValenciaAwardHonorary Doctorate of the University of Las Palmas, Gran CanariaAward1998Grand Collar of the Military Order of Saint James of the SwordAwardNobel Prize in LiteratureAwardPremio Arcebispo Xoán de San Clemente de novela estranxeiraAward1997Honorary Doctorate of the University of Castille-La ManchaAward1995Camões PrizeAward1992“From literature to ecology, from the escape velocity of galaxies to the greenhouse effect, from garbage disposal methods to traffic jams, everything is discussed in our world.”In their wordsIntervention in the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, February of 1992; quoted in Las leyes antidiscriminatorias en el Mercosur: ImpactosRead the whole statement

1991Honorary Doctorate of Seville UniversityAward1922Born16 November 1922

Also in Deutsch

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JSJoseSaramago

In their own words 10

José Saramago

10 statements, newest first

Now we live in the empire of oil and money - the rest is disguise.
2005, ÉPOCA Interview (in Portuguese), São Paulo, 2005., Own words
...I'm not able to fear death... We will all turn skeletons and everything shall end. The skeleton becomes, therefore, the most radical form of nudity.
2005, ÉPOCA Interview (in Portuguese), São Paulo, 2005., Own words
Yes [death has become a taboo]. Today people want to avoid the subject and hide the deaths that happen around them.
2005, ÉPOCA Interview (in Portuguese), São Paulo, 2005., Own words

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Awards

Grand Collar of the Order of Camões2021

America Award in Literature2004

Honorary Doctorate of the University of Granada2001

Honorary Doctorate of the University of Salamanca2000

Honorary Doctorate of the Bordeaux Montaigne University1999

Honorary Doctorate of the University of Las Palmas, Gran Canaria1999

Honorary Doctorate of the Polytechnic University of Valencia1999

Nobel Prize in Literature1998

Grand Collar of the Military Order of Saint James of the Sword1998

Premio Arcebispo Xoán de San Clemente de novela estranxeira1998

Honorary Doctorate of the University of Castille-La Mancha1997

Camões Prize1995

Honorary Doctorate of Seville University1991

Honorary Doctor of the University of Manchester

Honorary Doctorate of the University of Coimbra

Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres

Commander of the Military Order of Saint James of the Sword

Honorary Doctor of the University of Brasília

Honorary Doctor of the University of Turin

Honorary Doctor of the University of Santiago, Chile

Flaiano Literary Prize

Family

José Saramago

Partners

Child Violante Saramago Matos

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About this person

José de Sousa Saramago was born 16 November 1922 in Portugal and spent decades writing allegories that dismantled official versions of history, narrating them in a voice critics described as both wise and ignorant. When his 1992 novel The Gospel According to Jesus Christ was deemed religiously offensive and removed from a European prize shortlist by Prime Minister Aníbal Cavaco Silva's government, Saramago took it as censorship and left for the Spanish island of Lanzarote with his wife Pilar del Río. He kept writing - parables sustained by imagination, compassion and irony, per the Nobel committee that gave him the 1998 Prize in Literature. An atheist and libertarian communist, he spent his later years criticizing the Catholic Church and the European Union, founding a human rights foundation, and selling more than two million books in Portugal alone before his death on 18 June 2010.

Country

Portugal

In common with José

Yūsuke IseyaAlso in Blindness (2008)

Antonia San JuanAlso in The Stone Raft (2002)

José RaposoAlso in Embargo (2010)

João Mário GriloAlso in Saramago: Documentos (1996)

Julianne MooreAlso in Blindness (2008)

Federico LuppiAlso in The Stone Raft (2002)

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