José Saramago, Nobel Prize-Winning Writer, Dies

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

Source: NY Times

By FERNANDA EBERSTADT
Published: June 18, 2010


José Saramago, the Portuguese writer who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1998 with novels that combine surrealist experimentation and a kind of sardonic peasant pragmatism, has died at his home in Lanzarote in the Canary Islands, his publisher said on Friday. He was 87.

The Unexpected Fantasist (August 26, 2007) The publisher, Zeferino Coelho, told the Portuguese newspaper Publico that Mr. Saramago’s health had been deteriorating after a recent illness, but gave no other details, according to The Associated Press.

Mr. Saramago, a tall, commandingly austere man with a dry, schoolmasterly manner, gained international acclaim for novels like “Baltasar and Blimunda” and “Blindness.” (A film adaptation of “Blindness” by the Brazilian director Fernando Mireilles was released in 2008.)

Mr. Saramago was the first Portuguese-language writer to win the Nobel Prize, and more than two million copies of his books have been sold, Mr. Coelho said.


Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/19/books/19saramago.html?src=mv