José Saramago 1922-2010

Todos sabemos que cada dia que nasce é o primeiro para uns e será o último para outros e que, para a maioria é só um dia mais.
[We all know that each new day is the first for some and will be the last for others, and for most is just one more day]

José Saramago

Nobel laureate José Saramago died today here are some reactions.

The Portuguese novelist José Saramago, who explored Portugal's troubled political identity in a series of novels published over the last four decades and won the Nobel prize for literature in 1998, died today at the age of 87.
An outspoken atheist and communist, he challenged the orthodoxies of post-dictatorship Portuguese life with novels such as Baltasar and Blimunda, The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis and All the Names, but reached his widest audience with the 2008 film of his 1995 novel, Blindness, directed by Fernando Meirelles. He spent the last years of his life in Lanzarote after the Portuguese government had vetoed the nomination of his novel The Gospel According to Jesus Christ for an EU literary prize in 1992.

guardian.co.uk

José Saramago, the Portuguese writer who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1998 with novels that combine surrealist experimentation with a kind of sardonic peasant pragmatism, died on Friday at his home in Lanzarote in the Canary Islands. He was 87.
The cause was multiple organ failure after a long illness, the José Saramago Foundation said in an announcement on its Web site, josesaramago.org.
A tall, commandingly austere man with a dry, schoolmasterly manner, Mr. Saramago gained international acclaim for novels like "Baltasar and Blimunda" and "Blindness." (A film adaptation of "Blindness" by the Brazilian director Fernando Meirelles was released in 2008.)

The New York Times

Jose Saramago, winner of the 1998 Nobel Prize in literature for early novels that explored historical themes from unconventional angles and later works in which inexplicable events threaten society’s underpinnings, has died. He was 87.
The writer died earlier today at his home in Lanzarote, Spain, after a lengthy illness, according to the website of the Jose Saramago Foundation.
Saramago, the only Portuguese winner of the literary prize, was 60 before he wrote most of the novels for which he was honored, having worked as a car mechanic, civil servant, production manager in a publishing company and newspaper editor before becoming a full-time writer.

businessweek.com

Jose Saramago, who became the first Portuguese-language winner of the Nobel Literature prize although his popularity at home was dampened by his unflinching support for Communism, blunt manner and sometimes difficult prose style, died Friday.
Saramago, 87, died at his home in Lanzarote, one of Spain's Canary Islands, of multi-organ failure after a long illness, the Jose Saramago Foundation said.
"The writer died in the company of his family, saying goodbye in a serene and placid way," the foundation said.
Saramago was an outspoken man who antagonized many, and moved to the Canary Islands after a public spat in 1992 with the Portuguese government, which he accused of censorship.
His 1998 Nobel accolade was nonetheless widely cheered in his homeland after decades of the award eluding writers of a language used by some 170 million people around the world.

The Associated Press

O prémio Nobel da Literatura de 1998 faleceu aos 87 anos na sua casa na ilha espanhola de Lanzarote.

O escritor português, que recebeu o prémio Nobel da Literatura e o Prémio Camões, deixa uma vasta obra literária, da qual se destaca, entre outros, os livros Memorial do Convento, O Evangelho Segundo Jesus Cristo e Levantado do Chão.

O seu romance Ensaio sobre a Cegueira foi adaptado ao cinema pelo realizador brasileiro Fernando Meirelles numa película co-produzida por três países

tsf.pt

El escritor, poeta y dramaturgo portugués José Saramago murió en España, a los 87 años.
El fallecimiento fue informado esta mañana por su editor Zeferino Coelho, que precisó que el literato murió en su casa de Lanzarote, en las islas Canarias. Su salud se había deteriorado en los últimos meses.
Saramago ganó el Premio Nobel de Literatura en 1998 y su última novela, Caín, se publicó el año pasado. En su prolífera obra se destacan: La balsa de piedra (1986), El Evangelio según Jesucristo (1991), Ensayo sobre la ceguera (1995), Todos los nombres (1997), El hombre duplicado (2002) y Ensayo sobre la lucidez (2004).

lanacion.com

O escritor faleceu às 13 horas locais (8 horas de Brasília), segundo sua esposa e tradutora, Pilar del Rio. Ainda de acordo com ela, Saramago havia passado uma noite tranquila e, depois de tomar café da manhã com a mulher, começou a passar mal e faleceu em pouco tempo.
O autor recebeu o prêmio máximo da Literatura em 1998. Segundo a premiação, Saramago "nos permitiu mais uma vez apreender uma realidade ilusória por meio de parábolas sustentadas pela imaginação, pela compaixão e pela ironia".

estadao.com.br

Portuguese novelist Jose Saramago, the Nobel laureate best known for controversial works such as Blindness and The Gospel According to Jesus Christ, has died at age 87.
Saramago died at his home in Lanzarote, one of Spain's Canary Islands, his publisher, Zeferino Coelho, said Friday.
He suffered multiple organ failure after a long illness, according to the Jose Saramago Foundation.
"The writer died in the company of his family, saying goodbye in a serene and placid way," the foundation said.

cbcnews.com