Jose Saramago
Jose Saramago
José de Sousa Saramago, GColSE, was a Portuguese writer and recipient of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Literature. His works, some of which can be seen as allegories, commonly present subversive perspectives on historic events, emphasizing the human factor. Harold Bloom described Saramago as "the greatest living novelist" and considers him to be "a permanent part of the Western canon", while James Wood praises "the distinctive tone to his fiction because he narrates his novels as if he were someone...
NationalityPortuguese
ProfessionWriter
Date of Birth16 November 1922
CountryPortugal
Perhaps it is the language that chooses the writers it needs, making use of them so that each might express a tiny part of what it is.
...the habit of falling hardens the body, reaching the ground, to in itself, is a relief.
Words are like that, they deceive, they pile up, it seems they do not know where to go, and, suddenly, because of two or three or four that suddenly come out, simple in themselves, a personal pronoun, an adverb, an adjective, we have the excitement of seeing them coming irresistibly to the surface through the skin and the eyes and upsetting the composure of our feelings, sometimes the nerves that can not bear it any longer, they put up with a great deal, they put up with everything, it was as if they were wearing armor, we might say.
A human being is a being who is constantly 'under construction,' but also, in a parallel fashion, always in a state of constant destruction.
The ear has to be educated if one wishes to appreciate musical sounds, just as the eyes must learn to distinguish the value of words.
Reading is probably another way of being in a place.
Men are angels born without wings, nothing could be nicer than to be born without wings and to make them grow.
Death is present every day in our lives. It's not that I take pleasure in the morbid fascination of it, but it is a fact of life.
The novel is not so much a literary genre, but a literary space, like a sea that is filled by many rivers.
One can show no greater respect than to weep for a stranger.
Words have their own hierarchy, their own protocol, their own artistic titles, their own plebeian stigmas.
A writer is a man like any other: he dreams. And my dream was to be able to say of this book, when I finished: 'This is a book about Alentejo'.
A woman is essentially a vessel made to be filled.
...this is the way fate usually treats us, it's right there behind us, it has already reached out a hand to touch us on the shoulder while we're still muttering to ourselves, It's all over, that's it, who cares anyhow.