In the end we discover the only condition for living is to die.
Jose Saramago
Jose Saramago died today.
He was the first and so far the only Portuguese Literature Nobel. I must have been about 16 when I first read “Baltasar and Blimunda” and it’s still one of my favourite love stories. His opening scene is burnt in my memory: the King’s visit to the Queen’s bed. The de facto beginning of the story of the Convent of Mafra, which King Joao V builds to thank God for giving him an heir. It was also my entry point into the world of historical fiction.
And what other great stories came out of Saramago’s head: In The Stone Raft, he imagines the Iberian Peninsula drifting away from Europe, in Blindness he describes a country dealing with an epidemic of white blindness, but in the sequel Seeing that country decides to vote blank en masse. In Death with Interruptions he writtes about a town where, from one day to the next, no one dies…
RIP
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June 18, 2010 at 11:37 pm
Steph
I love Saramago, so I’m definitely feeling this loss. I’m just glad that I still have so much of his rich back catalog to discover (I’ve only read two of his books!), and that he has a new novel being published in the Fall. Through literature, Saramago will never truly die.
June 23, 2010 at 11:09 am
Alex
You probably mean “The Trip of the Elephant” (not sure about the exact translation). It’s a lovely book and although not his last (“Caim” has that claim), I saw it as his swan song. It’s dedicated to his wife Pilar “who wouldn’t let me die”.