Saramago, José

Entry updated 4 March 2024. Tagged: Author.

(1922-2010) Portuguese author who published as a very young man an unmemorable first novel, Terra do Pecado ["Land of Sin"] (1947), and some plays and essays over the next decades, as well as the nonfantastic Levantado do chão (1980; trans Margaret Jull Costa as Raised from the Ground 2012); but only became well-known with his third novel, Memorial do convento ["Memorial of the Convent"] (1982; trans Giovanni Pontiero as Baltasar and Blimunda 1987), a lyrical Fabulation set in an eighteenth-century world where sf elements – a nun with x-Ray vision; a priest's Invention of a flying machine that transports its passengers into space, where Heaven is located – are luminously commingled (see Equipoise) with a Satirical portrait of Portugal. Several of his later novels intensify narrative strategies which seem at times hallucinated but never fail to embody understandings of the world both coherent and unmistakably transgressive within the disturbed intellectual environment of modern Portugal. In A jangada de pedra (1986; trans Giovanni Pontiero as The Stone Raft 1994), Portugal and Spain are mysteriously broken off from the main of Europe, becoming an Island, adrift and isolated from the passage of true history elsewhere; in História do cerco de Lisboa (1989; trans Giovanni Pontiero as The History of the Siege of Lisbon 1997), a proofing error in a history of Portugal transforms the Myth of Origin [see The Encyclopedia of Fantasy under links below] of that country. Saramago has often been compared to Jose Luis Borges and Franz Kafka; he has been called a Magic Realist, not convincingly, though his stories share some of the fixated energy characteristic of Gabriel García Márquez (1928-2014) [see The Encyclopedia of Fantasy under links below]; contemporary writers who share his mythopoeic focus on the nature and fate of their native land include Milorad Pavić and (arguably) Umberto Eco.

Later works tend even more intensely to employ central conceits that transform superficially simple narratives into unmistakable multivalent allegories whose essential drift – Saramago was, in his words, a "libertarian Communist" – remained consistently and continually offensive to the world's officers (the Roman Catholic Church's official newspaper, l'Osservatore Romano, editorialized negatively on him after his death). In Ensaio sobre a cegueira (1995; trans Giovanni Pontiero and Margaret Jull Costa as Blindness 1997), everyone in a City, which may be coterminous with the world, suddenly succumbs to a Pandemic known as "white blindness", which duly blinds everyone except for a single woman, who is overwhelmed by terror at the nescience of the world now exposed; this novel was filmed as Blindness (2008), directed by Fernando Meirelles. In a thematic sequel, Ensaio sobre a Lucidez (2004; trans Margaret Jull Costa as Seeing 2006), all the inhabitants of the same unnamed City are blessed with truth-exposing vision, and no one votes for anyone in the election being held. The government falls. The Centre at the heart of the unnamed country featured in A Caverna (2000; trans Margaret Jull Costa as The Cave 2002) is an Edifice [see The Encyclopedia of Fantasy under links below] insanely choked with consumer goods. The inhabitants of another unnamed urban ganglion, in As Intermitências da Morte (2005; trans Margaret Jull Costa as Death at Intervals 2008; vt Death With Interruptions 2008), stop dying. In a moderately playful sidebar to this rough sequence, O Conto da Ilha Desconhecida (1997 chap; trans Margaret Jull Costa as The Tale of the Unknown Island 1999 chap), the quest for an inherently unknowable Island ends in a world of dreams; the novellas was staged as The Unknown Island (October 2017 Gate, London) adapted by Ellen McDougall and Clare Slater.

The eponymous protagonist of Caim (2009; trans Margaret Jull Costa as Cain 2011) visits various events told in the Old Testament (see Time Travel) which are subjected to scathing Satire.

Saramago received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1998, despite the fact that his complexly integrated use of fantastic motifs markedly distinguishes him from the kind of Mainstream Writer of SF more usually awarded garden gongs. His funeral in Lisbon was attended by 20,000 mourners. [JC/LFS]

José de Sousa Saramago

born Golegã, Azinhaga, Satarém, Portugal: 16 November 1922

died Tias, Lanzarote, Canary Islands: 18 June 2010

works (selected)

Terra do Pecado ["Land of Sin"] (Lisbon, Portugal: Minerva, 1947) [pb/]
Memorial do convento ["Memorial of the Convent"] (Lisbon, Portugal: Caminho, 1982) [pb/]
- Baltasar and Blimunda (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1987) [trans by Giovanni Pontiero of the above: hb/from Gioto]
O ano da morte de Ricardo Reis (Lisbon, Portugal: Caminho, 1984) [binding unknown/]
- The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1991) [trans by Giovanni Pontiero of the above: hb/Vaughn Andrews]
A jangada de pedra (Lisbon, Portugal: Caminho, 1986) [binding unknown/]
- The Stone Raft (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1994) [trans by Giovanni Pontiero of the above: hb/Paolo Piglia]
História do cerco de Lisboa (Lisbon, Portugal: Caminho, 1989) [binding unknown/]
- The History of the Siege of Lisbon (New York: Harcourt Brace and Company, 1997) [trans by Giovanni Pontiero of the above: hb/Vaughn Andrews]
O Evangelho Segundo Jesus Cristo (Lisbon, Portugal: Caminho, 1991) [binding unknown/]
- The Gospel according to Jesus Christ (London: The Harvill Press, 1993) [trans by Giovanni Pontiero of the above: hb/Paolo Piglia]
Ensaio sobre a cegueira (Lisbon, Portugal: Caminho, 1995) [pb/nonpictorial]
- Blindness (London: The Harvill Press, 1997) [trans by Giovanni Pontiero and Margaret Jull Costa of the above: hb/Paolo Piglia]
Todos os nomes: romance ["All the Names: a novel"] (Lisbon, Portugal: Caminho, 1997) [binding unknown/]
- All the Names (New York: Harcourt Inc, 1999) [trans by Margaret Jull Costa of the above: hb/Claudine Guerguerian]
O Conto da Ilha Desconhecida (Lisbon, Portugal: Pavilhão de Portugal Expo '98, 1997) [novella: chap: illus/Pedro Cabrita Reis: binding unknown/]
- The Tale of the Unknown Island (New York: Harcourt Brace and Company, 1999) [novella: chap: trans Margaret Jull Costa of the above: illus/hb/Peter Sís]
A Caverna (Lisbon, Portugal: Caminho, 2000) [binding unknown/]
- The Cave (New York: Harcourt Inc, 2002) [trans by Margaret Jull Costa of the above: hb/Nikolaevich/Photonica]
O Homen Duplicado (Lisbon, Portugal: Caminho, 2002) [pb/]
- The Double (New York: Harcourt, 2004) [trans by Margaret Jull Costa of the above: hb/Claudien G Mansour]
Ensaio sobre a Lucidez (Lisbon, Portugal: Caminho, 2004) [pb/]
- Seeing (New York: Harcourt, 2006) [trans by Margaret Jull Costa of the above: hb/Claudine G Mansour]
As Intermitências da Morte (Lisbon, Portugal: Caminho, 2005) [binding unknown/]
- Death at Intervals (London: Harvill Secker, 2008) [trans by Margaret Jull Costa of the above: hb/]
  - Death with Interruptions (New York: Harcourt, 2008) [vt of the above trans: hb/]
A Viagem do Elefante (Lisbon, Portugal: Caminho, 2008) [binding unknown/]
- The Elephant's Journey (New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2010) [trans of the above: hb/]
Caim (Lisbon, Portugal: Caminho, 2009) [binding unknown/]
- Cain (London: Harvill Secker, 2011) [trans by Margaret Jull Costa of the above: hb/nonpictorial]

collections

Objecto Quase (Lisbon, Portugal: Moraes, 1978) [coll: binding unknown/]
- The Lives of Things (London: Verso, 2012) [coll: trans by Giovanni Pontiero of the above: hb/James Hutcheson]

links

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