José Saramago, 1922–2010
The mechanic who won the Nobel in literature
José Saramago never denied that his long, difficult sentences and mystical digressions could vex a reader. “Probably I’m an essay writer who, as he doesn’t know how to write essays, writes novels instead,” he said in 2002. Yet his novels were translated into 25 languages, and in 1998 he became Portugal’s only Nobel Prize–winning novelist, garnering praise from the Nobel committee for his “multifaceted” writing and its “skillfully evoked atmosphere of unreality.”
Born into a poor family in Azinhaga, a village 62 miles from Lisbon, Saramago graduated from trade school and worked as a mechanic while he studied literature “mostly on his own,” said Bloomberg News. In the 1940s he published his first novel, but soon abandoned fiction writing, a withdrawal that lasted 19 years. “I had nothing worthwhile to say,” he later wrote.
Saramago joined the Communist Party during the fascist dictatorship of António Salazar, when being a communist “meant taking huge risks,” said the London Guardian. He ended his long friendship with Fidel Castro in 2003, saying Castro had “cheated my dreams.” But Saramago retained his “fierce anticlericalism” and was a political provocateur at home and abroad. “His outspokenness set off a storm of protest in 2002 when during a visit he compared Ramallah, a Palestinian city blockaded at the time by the Israeli army, to the Nazi death camps at Auschwitz and Buchenwald.”
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Literary success came late in Saramago’s life, said Reuters.com, beginning with a 1982 novel that was published in English, in 1988, as Baltasar and Blimunda. In 1992, he went into self-imposed exile, moving to the Canary Islands after Portugal’s government excluded his novel, The Gospel According to Jesus Christ, from consideration for a literary prize. Saramago’s lyrical style, “weaving together fantasy, Portuguese history, and attacks on political repression and poverty,” led to comparisons with such Latin American writers as Gabriel García Márquez. But he denied any such influences. “European literature doesn’t need to borrow magic realism and fantasy from Latin America,” he said. “Any country can have its own magic realism roots.”
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
-
Bluetoothing: the phenomenon driving HIV spike in Fiji
Under the Radar ‘Blood-swapping’ between drug users fuelling growing health crisis on Pacific island
-
Marisa Silver’s 6 favorite books that capture a lifetime
Feature The author recommends works by John Williams, Ian McEwan, and more
-
Book reviews: ‘We the People: A History of the U.S. Constitution’ and ‘Will There Ever Be Another You’
Feature The many attempts to amend the U.S. Constitution and Patricia Lockwood’s struggle with long Covid
-
Robert Redford: the Hollywood icon who founded the Sundance Film Festival
Feature Redford’s most lasting influence may have been as the man who ‘invigorated American independent cinema’ through Sundance
-
Patrick Hemingway: The Hemingway son who tended to his father’s legacy
Feature He was comfortable in the shadow of his famous father, Ernest Hemingway
-
Giorgio Armani obituary: designer revolutionised the business of fashion
In the Spotlight ‘King Giorgio’ came from humble beginnings to become a titan of the fashion industry and redefine 20th-century clothing
-
Ozzy Osbourne obituary: heavy metal wildman and lovable reality TV dad
In the Spotlight For Osbourne, metal was 'not the music of hell but rather the music of Earth, not a fantasy but a survival guide'
-
Brian Wilson: the troubled genius who powered the Beach Boys
Feature The musical giant passed away at 82
-
Sly Stone: The funk-rock visionary who became an addict and recluse
Feature Stone, an eccentric whose songs of uplift were tempered by darker themes of struggle and disillusionment, had a fall as steep as his rise
-
Mario Vargas Llosa: The novelist who lectured Latin America
Feature The Peruvian novelist wove tales of political corruption and moral compromise
-
Dame Maggie Smith: an intensely private national treasure
In the Spotlight Her mother told her she didn't have the looks to be an actor, but Smith went on to win awards and capture hearts