José Saramago

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Lore & Background

Saramago was born in 1922 into a family of very poor landless peasants in Azinhaga, Portugal. His parents were José de Sousa and Maria da Piedade. "Saramago," the Portuguese word for wild radish, was the insulting nickname given to his father and was accidentally incorporated into his name by the village clerk. In 1924 his family relocated to Lisbon, where his father began working as a police officer. Several months later his older brother Francisco died at age four. Saramago spent vacations with his grandparents in Azinhaga; he recalled his grandfather, after suffering a stroke, embracing the trees in his yard and crying, saying goodbye 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." At age 12 his parents moved him to a technical school. He graduated as a lathe operator and worked as a car mechanic for two years. He married Ilda Reis in 1944; their only daughter, Violante, was born in 1947. He worked as a civil servant, then as an editor and translator at Estúdios Cor, and later as a journalist. In 1968 he met and became lover of writer Isabel da Nóbrega, who became his devoted literary mentor. After the 1974 democratic revolution, on 9 April 1975, he became assistant director of the newspaper Diário de Notícias. After the Coup of 25 November 1975, he was fired. He published his first novel, Land of Sin, in 1947, but did not achieve widespread recognition until age 60 with Memorial do Convento (1982).

Reader's Guide

Saramago's significance lies in his Nobel Prize-winning literary output and his role as a prominent Portuguese intellectual. In 2003 Harold Bloom described him as "the most gifted novelist alive in the world today" and in 2010 said he considers Saramago "a permanent part of the Western canon." James Wood praised "the distinctive tone to his fiction because he narrates his novels as if he were someone both wise and ignorant." A proponent of libertarian communism and an atheist, he criticized institutions such as the Catholic Church, the European Union and the International Monetary Fund. In 1992, the Government of Portugal under Prime Minister Aníbal Cavaco Silva ordered the removal of The Gospel According to Jesus Christ from the Aristeion Prize's shortlist, claiming the work was religiously offensive. Feeling disheartened, Saramago went into exile on the Spanish island of Lanzarote, where he lived with his Spanish wife Pilar del Río until his death in 2010. He was a founding member of the National Front for the Defense of Culture in Lisbon in 1992. In 2007 he founded the José Saramago Foundation, whose institutional principles are to defend and spread the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, promote culture in Portugal and all countries, and address concerns about environmentalism.

Did You Know?

• Saramago's surname, meaning wild radish, was an insulting nickname given to his father and was accidentally incorporated into his name by the village clerk upon registration of his birth.
• More than two million copies of Saramago's books have been sold in Portugal alone, and his work has been translated into 25 languages.
• In 1992, the Portuguese government under Prime Minister Aníbal Cavaco Silva removed Saramago's novel The Gospel According to Jesus Christ from the Aristeion Prize shortlist, claiming it was religiously offensive.
• Saramago's funeral in Lisbon on 20 June 2010 was attended by more than 20,000 people; President Aníbal Cavaco Silva did not attend, saying he 'had never had the privilege to know him.'
• Saramago joined the Portuguese Communist Party in 1969 and remained a member until the end of his life.