Nobel literature laureate Saramago dies
Jose Saramago, who became the first Portuguese-language winner of the Nobel Literature prize although his popularity at home was dampened by his unflinching support for Communism, blunt manner and sometimes difficult prose style, has died.
Saramago, 87, died at his home in Lanzarote, one of Spain’s Canary Islands, of multi-organ failure after a long illness, the Jose Saramago Foundation said.
“The writer died in the company of his family, saying goodbye in a serene and placid way,” the foundation said.
Saramago was an outspoken man who antagonised many, and moved to the Canary Islands after a public spat in 1992 with the Portuguese government, which he accused of censorship.
His 1998 Nobel accolade was nonetheless widely cheered in his homeland after decades of the award eluding writers of a language used by some 170 million people around the world.
“People used to say about me, ’He’s good but he’s a Communist.’ Now they say, ’He’s a Communist but he’s good’,” he said in a 1998 interview.
Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Socrates said Saramago was “one of our great cultural figures and his disappearance has left our culture poorer”.
International critical acclaim came late in his life, starting with his 1982 historical fantasy 'Memorial do Convento', published in English in 1988 as 'Baltasar and Blimunda'.
The story is set during the Inquisition and explores the battle between individuals and organised religion, picking up Saramago’s recurring theme of the loner struggling against authority.
That kind of conflict surfaced in the heated clash Saramago had in 1992 with Portuguese under-secretary of state for culture Antonio Sousa Lara, which prompted Saramago’s move to the Spanish islands off northwest Africa.
Sousa Lara withdrew the writer’s name from Portugal’s nominees for the European Literature Prize. Lara said Saramago’s 1991 novel 'O Evangelho Segundo Jesus Cristo (The Gospel according to Jesus Christ)' – in which Christ lives with Mary Magdalene and tries to back out of his crucifixion – offended Portuguese religious convictions and divided the heavily Roman Catholic country.
