Saramago, JosÉ

(born Nov. 16, 1922, Azinhaga, Port.) Portuguese novelist. From a poor family, Saramago studied part-time while working in a welder's shop.

Later he began working as a journalist and translator. He published his first novel, Country of Sin, in 1947. His breakthrough work, Baltasar and Blimunda (1982), alternates allegorical fantasy with grimly realistic descriptions of the construction of a convent by thousands of labourers pressed into service. Saramago's later novels, in which magic realism is mixed with outspoken political commentary, include The Stone Raft (1986), perhaps his best-known work, and Blindness (1995). He received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1998.