Showing posts with label jose saramago. Show all posts
Showing posts with label jose saramago. Show all posts
Saturday, June 19, 2010
Saramago Dies
He moved to the Canary Islands in 1998 after a spat with the Portuguese government concerning his novel The Gospel According to Jesus Christ, which many considered offensive to Catholics in its depicting a a flawed and very human Jesus. He also courted controversy as an unflinching supporter of communism.
Born into poverty in 1922 in a small village outside Lisbon, Saramago was largely self-educated. He never finished university but continued to study part time, supporting himself as a metal-worker. He's described by Helder Macedo, emeritus professor of Portuguese literature at Kings College London as :
... an avid reader (and) a voracious intellectual ... acquiring information as much as he could.He wrote his first novel when he was in his 20s, but left off writing fiction for many years because he said he had nothing to say and turned to journalism instead.
When his membership of the communist party cost him his job as a newspaper editor in 1974, he returned to writing fiction, now well into his 50's. He called himself :
... a belated writer.He wrote novels which tackled big themes and blended fact with fantasy and folklore. In Blindness, for example, he wrote about the whole population of a city losing its sight.
His 1982 novel, Baltasar and Blimunda, was the first to be widely translated,and to attract international attention. He won the Nobel in 1998.
Jose Socrates, Portuguese Prime Minister, has called Saramago one of Portugal's great cultural figures and said that his death had left the culture poorer.
NPR has an excellent piece on the author (which you can listen to as well). Carl Franzen on politicsdaily.com reveals five fascinating facts about his life. He is profiled too in The Globe and Mail.
Doubtless there will be any other tributes flooding in, and I will post links to them later below.
Monday, November 24, 2008
From Car Mechanic to Nobel Winner
Unemployed again and bearing in mind the political situation we were undergoing, without the faintest possibility of finding a job, I decided to devote myself to literature: it was about time to find out what I was worth as a writer. We were talking the other day about folks who begin writing late in life. The Portuguese Nobel laureate José Saramago is among them, as he started writing seriously in his 50's. Before that he worked, among other things, as a car mechanic and metal-worker. (You can find a fascinating account of his life on the Nobel site.)
Saramago, now 86 and recovered from a respiratory infection that threatened to end his life, is interviewed in the Guardian.
Saturday, January 20, 2007
Homage to the Art of Translators
The longlist for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize has been announced, and as Boyd Tonkin says, it has never looked richer, or broader.
Tonkin pays homage both to the "protean art" of fiction:
The prize is unique among literary award in that it rewards both novelist and translator equally.
The judges had one dilemma this year. The prize honours living novelists. What were they then to do with the highly acclaimed Suite Francaise by Irene Némirovsky? The author died in Auschwitz in 1942, but the novel lay undiscovered in a trunk for over 60 years.
It was decided in the end to give the novel a special commendation so that it could stand:
My Father's Notebook by Kader Abdolah and translated by Susan Massotty
The Book of Chameleons by José Eduardo Agualusa and translated by Daniel Hahn
Steal You Away by Niccolò Ammaniti and translated by Jonathan Hunt
The Speed of Light by Javier Cercas and translated by Anne McLean
The Moldavian Pimp by Edgardo Cozarinsky and translated by Nick Caistor
The Story of Blanche and Marie by Per Olov Enquist and translated by Tina Nunnally
The Old Child by Jenny Erpenbeck and translated by Susan Bernofsky
Just Like Tomorrow by Faïza Guène and translated by Sarah Adams
Four Walls by Vangelis Hatziyannidis translated by Anne-Marie Stanton-Ife
The Successor by Ismail Kadare and translated by David Bellos
Stick Out Your Tongue by Ma Jian and translated by Flora Drew
Your Face Tomorrow 2: Dance and Dream by Javier Marías and translated by Margaret Jull Costa
Vienna by Eva Menasse and translated by Anthea Bell
Wizard of the Crow by Ngugi wa Thiong'o and translated by Ngugi wa Thiong'o
Havana Black by Leonardo Padura and translated by Peter Bush
A Thousand Rooms of Dream and Fear by Atiq Rahimi and translated by Sarah Maguire and Yama Yari
Seeing by José Saramago and translated by Margaret Jull Costa
The Gaze by Elif Shafak and translated by Brendan Freely
Shyness and Dignity by Dag Solstad and translated by Sverre Lyngstad
Grace by Linn Ullmann and translated by Barbara Haveland
Tonkin pays homage both to the "protean art" of fiction: ... as practised from Berlin (by Jenny Erpenbeck) to Buenos Aries (by Edgardo Cozarinsky). Power and its abuses come under cool, satirical scrutiny from Angola (José Eduardo Agualusa) to Albania (Ismail Kadare). Family stories bring joy and sorrow, comedy and tragedy, from Austria (Eva Menasse) to Iran (Kader Abdolah). Mysteries from the past demand solutions from the present in Cuba (Leonardo Padura) or Italy (Niccolò Ammaniti). Individuals face life-defining moments of crisis and discovery in Norway (Linn Ullmann) or Afghanistan (Atiq Rahimi). And this world in flux takes shape via fictional forms as vastly varied as the street-smart Parisian rap of Faïza Guène or the epic, and self-translated, African fable of Ngugi wa Thiong'o. With this list, an entire planet of fiction swings into view.and to the skill of the translators, noting that the chosen novels:
... are without exception, powerful books carried into English on powerful shoulders.
The prize is unique among literary award in that it rewards both novelist and translator equally.The judges had one dilemma this year. The prize honours living novelists. What were they then to do with the highly acclaimed Suite Francaise by Irene Némirovsky? The author died in Auschwitz in 1942, but the novel lay undiscovered in a trunk for over 60 years.
It was decided in the end to give the novel a special commendation so that it could stand:
... above the battle ... and in a class of its own.Here's the longlist with links to follow:
My Father's Notebook by Kader Abdolah and translated by Susan MassottyThe Book of Chameleons by José Eduardo Agualusa and translated by Daniel Hahn
Steal You Away by Niccolò Ammaniti and translated by Jonathan Hunt
The Speed of Light by Javier Cercas and translated by Anne McLean
The Moldavian Pimp by Edgardo Cozarinsky and translated by Nick Caistor
The Story of Blanche and Marie by Per Olov Enquist and translated by Tina Nunnally
The Old Child by Jenny Erpenbeck and translated by Susan Bernofsky
Just Like Tomorrow by Faïza Guène and translated by Sarah Adams
Four Walls by Vangelis Hatziyannidis translated by Anne-Marie Stanton-Ife
The Successor by Ismail Kadare and translated by David Bellos
Stick Out Your Tongue by Ma Jian and translated by Flora Drew
Your Face Tomorrow 2: Dance and Dream by Javier Marías and translated by Margaret Jull CostaVienna by Eva Menasse and translated by Anthea Bell
Wizard of the Crow by Ngugi wa Thiong'o and translated by Ngugi wa Thiong'o
Havana Black by Leonardo Padura and translated by Peter Bush
A Thousand Rooms of Dream and Fear by Atiq Rahimi and translated by Sarah Maguire and Yama Yari
Seeing by José Saramago and translated by Margaret Jull Costa
The Gaze by Elif Shafak and translated by Brendan Freely
Shyness and Dignity by Dag Solstad and translated by Sverre Lyngstad
Grace by Linn Ullmann and translated by Barbara Haveland
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