Jose Saramago biography

Jose Saramago Biography

José Saramago was born in 1922 in Azinhaga, Portugal, the son of rural laborers. He grew up in great poverty in Lisbon, and was forced to abandon school at the age of 12 in order to earn a living. Saramago was spent 2 years training as a technician,did a number of manual jobs before becoming a journalist, translator, and eventually a writer . In 1969 he joined the Communist Party of Portugal, which was forbidden during the military dictatorship, but he also criticized the party. In the 1970s Saramago supported himself mostly by translation works, and since 1979 he has devoted himself entirely to writing.

Following the publication of his most controversial book, The Gospel According to Jesus Christ, he faced intense criticism from members of the country's Catholic community, and Portugal's conservative government would not allow Saramago's work to compete for the European Literary Prize, arguing that it offended Catholics. As a result, Saramago and his wife moved to Lanzarote, an island in the Canaries, where he lives today.

Saramago is now one of the most acclaimed writers in the world, having written plays, short stories, novels, poems, libretti, diaries, and travelogues. His books have been translated into dozens of languages. He is also the author of numerous novels, including All the Names, Blindness, and The Cave. In 1998 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Saramago died on 18 June 2010, aged 87, having spent the last few years of his life living in Lanzarote, Spain. Portugal declared two days of mourning. His funeral was held in Lisbon on 20 June 2010, in the presence of more than 20,000 people.

This bio was last updated on 07/01/2010. In a perfect world, we would like to keep all of BookBrowse's biographies up to date, but with many thousands of lives to keep track of it's simply impossible to do. So, if the date of this bio is not recent, you may wish to do an internet search for a more current source, such as the author's website or social media presence. If you are the author or publisher and would like us to update this biography, send the complete text and we will replace the old with the new.