View all newsletters
Sign up to our newsletters

Support 110 years of independent journalism.

  1. Culture
21 June 2010

José Saramago: a New Statesman retrospective

In praise of the late Portuguese writer, who died on 18 June aged 87.

By Alexandra Coghlan

The death of the Nobel Prize-winning author José Saramago last Friday seems likely to spawn an international retrospective of his work. To mark the occasion, we’ve taken a look back through the New Statesman archives for reviews of his work.

Most recently Tom Cameron, reviewing the “dazzling satirical display” of Saramago’s 2008 novel Death at Intervals, praised the author’s distinctive tone:

Throughout his fiction, he has cultivated an entertaining and witty blend of logic and absurdity, and his work is characterised by an obsessive search for the right words and names even as he is amused by their arbitrariness.

Writing of Seeing in 2006, John Gray highlighted the struggle between Saramago’s political convictions and his aesthetic agenda:

Select and enter your email address Your weekly guide to the best writing on ideas, politics, books and culture every Saturday. The best way to sign up for The Saturday Read is via saturdayread.substack.com The New Statesman's quick and essential guide to the news and politics of the day. The best way to sign up for Morning Call is via morningcall.substack.com Our Thursday ideas newsletter, delving into philosophy, criticism, and intellectual history. The best way to sign up for The Salvo is via thesalvo.substack.com Stay up to date with NS events, subscription offers & updates. Weekly analysis of the shift to a new economy from the New Statesman's Spotlight on Policy team. The best way to sign up for The Green Transition is via spotlightonpolicy.substack.com
  • Administration / Office
  • Arts and Culture
  • Board Member
  • Business / Corporate Services
  • Client / Customer Services
  • Communications
  • Construction, Works, Engineering
  • Education, Curriculum and Teaching
  • Environment, Conservation and NRM
  • Facility / Grounds Management and Maintenance
  • Finance Management
  • Health - Medical and Nursing Management
  • HR, Training and Organisational Development
  • Information and Communications Technology
  • Information Services, Statistics, Records, Archives
  • Infrastructure Management - Transport, Utilities
  • Legal Officers and Practitioners
  • Librarians and Library Management
  • Management
  • Marketing
  • OH&S, Risk Management
  • Operations Management
  • Planning, Policy, Strategy
  • Printing, Design, Publishing, Web
  • Projects, Programs and Advisors
  • Property, Assets and Fleet Management
  • Public Relations and Media
  • Purchasing and Procurement
  • Quality Management
  • Science and Technical Research and Development
  • Security and Law Enforcement
  • Service Delivery
  • Sport and Recreation
  • Travel, Accommodation, Tourism
  • Wellbeing, Community / Social Services
Visit our privacy Policy for more information about our services, how New Statesman Media Group may use, process and share your personal data, including information on your rights in respect of your personal data and how you can unsubscribe from future marketing communications.
THANK YOU

At some level Saramago must realise that his political hopes are delusive and absurd. In Seeing, he blinds himself to this fact while allowing his characters the dubious gift of sight. Contrary to everything Saramago wishes to believe, the book is haunted by the thought that the world’s most serious problems have no political solution. It is as if the ghost of Pessoa had re-appeared, smiling, to mock him in his dreams.

Henry Sheen’s review of The Cave in 2002 drew attention to a structural development in Saramago’s writing:

While Saramago’s previous novels often languish and fade as they come to an end, The Cave has a decisive shape and clarity to the ending. The discovery of the cave is the final piece that makes the novel perfect and enlightens everything that has gone before.

Back in 1999, Robert Winder named Saramago’s All the Names as one of his picks for book of the year:

It traces the effects of a clerical error on the life of the world, and is both light and grave, elaborate and simple. A lovely adventure, a search for an unknown woman, floats on sentences that topple over one another like waves.

Saramago had intended to visit this year’s Edinburgh Festival to promote his new novel The Elephant’s Journey. That book, together with Cain, due next year, will complete the translation of his oeuvre into English.

Rebecca Carter, Saramago’s editor at Harvill Secker, praised his work as, “one of the most important of the last century — radical, witty, humane, endlessly challenging and questioning”.

Special subscription offer: Get 12 issues for £12 plus a free copy of Andy Beckett’s “When the Lights Went Out”.

Content from our partners
The promise of prevention
How Labour hopes to make the UK a leader in green energy
Is now the time to rethink health and care for older people? With Age UK

Select and enter your email address Your weekly guide to the best writing on ideas, politics, books and culture every Saturday. The best way to sign up for The Saturday Read is via saturdayread.substack.com The New Statesman's quick and essential guide to the news and politics of the day. The best way to sign up for Morning Call is via morningcall.substack.com Our Thursday ideas newsletter, delving into philosophy, criticism, and intellectual history. The best way to sign up for The Salvo is via thesalvo.substack.com Stay up to date with NS events, subscription offers & updates. Weekly analysis of the shift to a new economy from the New Statesman's Spotlight on Policy team. The best way to sign up for The Green Transition is via spotlightonpolicy.substack.com
  • Administration / Office
  • Arts and Culture
  • Board Member
  • Business / Corporate Services
  • Client / Customer Services
  • Communications
  • Construction, Works, Engineering
  • Education, Curriculum and Teaching
  • Environment, Conservation and NRM
  • Facility / Grounds Management and Maintenance
  • Finance Management
  • Health - Medical and Nursing Management
  • HR, Training and Organisational Development
  • Information and Communications Technology
  • Information Services, Statistics, Records, Archives
  • Infrastructure Management - Transport, Utilities
  • Legal Officers and Practitioners
  • Librarians and Library Management
  • Management
  • Marketing
  • OH&S, Risk Management
  • Operations Management
  • Planning, Policy, Strategy
  • Printing, Design, Publishing, Web
  • Projects, Programs and Advisors
  • Property, Assets and Fleet Management
  • Public Relations and Media
  • Purchasing and Procurement
  • Quality Management
  • Science and Technical Research and Development
  • Security and Law Enforcement
  • Service Delivery
  • Sport and Recreation
  • Travel, Accommodation, Tourism
  • Wellbeing, Community / Social Services
Visit our privacy Policy for more information about our services, how New Statesman Media Group may use, process and share your personal data, including information on your rights in respect of your personal data and how you can unsubscribe from future marketing communications.
THANK YOU