Saramago, José (1922– )

Portuguese writer. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1998, the first writer in Portuguese to win it. He has a lyrical style, incorporating fantasy, Portuguese history, and political repression. His novels include Memorial do convento/Baltasar and Blimunda (1982), A jaganda de pedra/The Stone Raft (1989), Historia do cerco de Lisboa/The History of the Siege of Lisbon (1989), Ensaio sobre a cegueira/Blindness (1995), and El hombre duplicado (2002). His novels have been translated into more than 25 languages.

In 1997 he published Todos os nomes/All the Names, in which he pays homage to the bureaucratic labyrinths of Kafka. Other works include O ano da morte de Ricardo Reis/The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis (1984), O evangelho segundo Jesus Cristo/The Gospel According to Jesus Christ (1991), El cuento de la isla desconocida/The Tale of the Unknown Island (1999), Viagem a Portugal/Journey to Portugal (1981; trans. 2001), and La Caverna (2001).

He is the son of farmers and was educated in Lisbon. He was a metalworker and draughtsman, then worked as a reader, editor, and translator, and later as a political commentator for the Portuguese newspaper Diario de Lisboa. He published his first novel, Manuel de pintura e caligrafia/Manual of Painting and Calligraphy, in 1977.