José Saramago: An Introduction

Abstract

Born into a farming community in Azinhaga in the Ribatejo region of Portugal on 16 November 1922, Saramago received his secondary education in Lisbon, but was forced to abandon his studies because of financial difficulties. He worked first as a mechanic, then became a technical designer employed in public administration and social services. Subsequently he found employment as a translator, became literary editor of a publishing house, turned to journalism and was appointed director of the Diario de Noticias in 1975. Determined to become a writer, he published several books of poetry and essays in the 1960s and early 1970s, and by the late 1970s he was drafting plays and his early novels. His golden decade, as it were, came in the 1980s with the publication of four major novels which were to bring him fame.