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.