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Tribute to José Saramago. 1922-2010.

Saturday, June 19, 2010, José Saramago died at the age of 87 years on the English island of Lanzarote (Canary Islands), where he resided since 1992, his book The Gospel According Jesus Christ was attacked and severely censured by the Church, which accused him of "undermining the religious heritage of the Portuguese." Obtaining Nobel Prize for Literature in 1998 -awarded for the first time an author of the Portuguese Language, won him recognition and immense history. Many identify with the Portuguese writer whose itinerary is emblematic.

"The writer of no longer possible. José Saramago lived in the time to divert the flow, suspended death and deprived the man of her senses to help him dispose of its smallness in the face and the infinitude of its weaknesses. He leaves a testament prophetic allegory anthropological whimsical and serious. "[Evene.fr]

novelist, essayist, poet and blogger, José Saramago himself against all social and political injustices. Rebellious, nonconformist, he was the voice of the oppressed and the weak. He was a man standing, having scared of anything or anyone: a free man, a man sharing.

"José Saramago was an extraordinary destiny. Born in 1922 in Azinhaga, a small village in Ribatejo located a hundred kilometers from Lisbon, the son of poor peasants, he left school early to work, linking various trades, locksmith translator. Self-taught, passionate about the books he published his first novel, Terra do Pecado (Sin Tierra), 1947. But it was in 1976 with Levantado do Chão (not translated into French, literally "raised [the] land") that actually enters into literature, and with Memorial do covento (The God Penguin, 1982, published in France in 1987) that acquired truly international literary reputation. "[Le Monde Diplomatique]

Revered by some, hated others, Jose Saramago is a great writer.
"His fables, gloomy, pessimistic, inflexible, he dresses in a language like no other, refined, untied, freed from the ordinary rules of punctuation and peppered with wickedly caustic response." [Evene.fr]

To its part, Odile Tremblay, Le Devoir wrote:
"polemicist in his life, he had a vision of complexity in his work, revisiting the great myths of mankind, essayist, novelist, poet, playwright, both utopian and pessimistic, playful writer who established his own type of punctuation. He started

usually a bizarre proposal to address its political ideas, its historical disappointments, its desolation to a humanity in his opinion unworthy of reason which accrues. "

In another blog, I will return to his work. I end this post by giving you to read some quotes found in the articles read in recent days.

[] "If there is an epitaph that would suit me would be:" Here lies John Doe, an indignant man, "confided José Saramago Le Devoir in 2005. "

[] " What I want to express is the indignation about the state of the world, misery, distress with millions of people. A huge portion of humanity lives in a permanent Apocalypse from birth to death. That's progress? That is civilization? "

[] " What I want to express is the indignation about the state of the world is misery, distress with millions of people. A huge portion of humanity lives in a permanent Apocalypse from birth to death. That's progress ? That is civilization? "[Interview granted to" The Republic of books ", January 2010.]

[] " In a sense we can say that letter after letter, word after word, page after page book after book, I have successively established the man I was the characters I created. I think without them I would not be the person I am today without them, maybe my life would never have been anything other than a vague outline, like a promise that many more would remained a promise, the existence of someone who might have been but ultimately would have been. "[From the speech when receiving the Nobel Prize for literature in 1998.]

Good day! See you soon ...