The novelist who became the first and only Portuguese-language writer to win the Nobel Prize in Literature has died at the age of 87.
José Saramago received the award in 1998. His novels, known for their complex style, included Memorial do Convento (Baltasar and Blimunda) and O Evangelho Segundo Jesus Cristo (The Gospel According to Jesus Christ), a controversial work that garnered accusations of blasphemy from the Catholic Church.
He wrote in Portuguese, the language spoken by an estimated 200 million people worldwide, though his books were translated into well over 20 other languages in his lifetime.
Saramago was born into a peasant family in Portugal, in 1922, and after leaving school, worked as a translator and journalist. From this work, he raised the funds to support his career as a fiction writer, a field in which he came to prominence in the 1970s.
His support for communism and atheism initially made him a pariah in his home country. When Portugal forbade him from competing for the European Literary Prize in 1992, he left for Lanzarote, Spain, where he spent the rest of his life.
On becoming a Nobel Laureate, however, Saramago received acclaim in his home country. The Portuguese Government declared two days of national mourning following the announcement of his death on June 18th.
On Saturday, the novelist's body was flown into the capital, Lisbon, accompanied by his wife, journalist Pilar del Río, who translated many of his works into Spanish. A funeral was held on Sunday in the city.
21 June 2010
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