© Opale

José DE SOUZA SARAMAGO

prix Nobel 1998

 

Jose de Souza Saramago was born in 1922, in the small village of Azinhago, about 100 km north of Lisbon, into a family of landless peasants. The nickname 'saramago', added by the registrar of births, is the name of a wild plant used as nourishment for the region's poor in times of need. Jose Saramago often evokes the memory of his grandparents, who were agricultural workers, and his great grandfather, who was of Berber origin.

"My grandparents were called Jeronimo Melrinho and Josefa Calxinha. Both were illiterate. In winter, when the cold and the dark were so intense that water froze in pots, they went to find the weakest piglets and put them in their bed. Under the thick covers the warmth of the humans protected the animals from the ice and saved them from certain death. They were good people, but their actions were not dictated by compassion: with neither sentimentalism not rhetoric, they acted to protect their livelihood with the behaviour natural to someone who, to survive, has never learnt to think beyond the indispensable. I often helped my grandfather in his work as a shepherd, but I also turned over the soil, I sawed wood for the fire, I turned the wheel which brought water from the communal well. Water which many a time I transported on my back, hiding it from the men who kept the cultivated land. With my grandmother, at dusk, I remember often going to thresh the straw which later served as litter for the animals" (from the speech delivered by Jose Saramago before the Swedish Royal Academy on the occasion of his Nobel Prize, 7th December 1998 - translated by Gerard Nosjean).

When he was two years old, his family moved to Lisbon, where his father became a policemen. Some months after their arrival, his older brother died.

Despite his excellent performance in school, for financial reasons he was forced to abandon secondary school and train as a mechanic. Having finished his training, he worked for two years as a mechanic in a car repair shop. It was during this period that he began to develop an interest in literature, frequenting the municipal library in the evening after work.

Between 1944 and 1949 he worked as a civil servant. In 1947, the year of the birth of his only child, he published his first novel, The Widow. He wrote another novel, that remained unpublished, and put his literary ambitions to one side. He would later comment that the reason for this was because it had become clear to him that he "had nothing to say."

In 1949, for political reasons he found himself unemployed. Thanks to the intervention of one of his former teachers at the technical school, he was employed by a metal company.

At the end of the 1950s he began to work in a publishing house, Estudios Cor, as head of production. This position gave him the opportunity to meet some of the most important Portuguese writers. During his spare time he worked as a translator, translating works by Colette, Jean Cassou, Tolstoi, Baudelaire, Maupassant, Andre Bonnard, Etienne Balibar, Hegel and another Nobel Laureate, Par Lagerkvist.

In 1966 he reappeared on the literary scene with a collection of poems, Possible Poems followed in 1970 with a second collection, Probably Joy. In 1971 he became one of the editors of the evening journal Diario de Lisba, where he worked until 1973.

Jose Saramago has been a member of the Communist Party since 1969 (at which time it was illegal) and his life, as well as his work has, always been actively engaged in politics. He played an active role during the 1974 Revolution, and as a result lost his job in 1974 after the Communist defeat.

At that point he decided to consecrate his time entirely to writing. The 1980s was the decade that saw his ascent as a great novelist. Baltasar and Blimunda, The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis, and The History of the Seige of Lisbon all demonstrate his ample capabilities as a novelist of international acclaim. He continued the trend in the 1990s with several powerful works, among them The Gospel According to Jesus Christ, All the Names, The Stone Raft and Blindness.

These novels often take as their framework plots of great imaginary depth, that may appear fantastical but often have an uncanny resemblance to actual historical situations. Saramago examines satirically the mythologising and totalising discourses employed within our society, be it by the media, politicians, or institutions charged with educating people, to convey reality. One single event can be written and rewritten over and again and is always vulnerable to plural interpretations. Saramago treats with insightful suspicion the notion of the "official version", or of a categorical reality. His works show a particular sensitivity towards how the manipulation of reality can fatally endanger human rights, indeed humans beings themselves.

In 1992 the Portugese government protested against his novel The Gospel According to Jesus Christ on the basis that it was offensive to Catholics, et applied their veto against its presentation for the European Prize for Literature. Saramago and his wife left Portugal to live in Lanzarote in the Canary Islands.

HIs oeuvre consists of more than 30 pieces, including poetry, prose, essays and novels.

in 1998 he received the Nobel Prize for Literature.