José de Sousa Saramago,
GColSE (; 16 November 1922 – 18 June 2010), was a
Portuguese writer and recipient of the 1998
Nobel Prize in Literature. His works, some of which can be seen as
allegories, commonly present
subversive perspectives on historic events, emphasizing the human factor.
Harold Bloom described Saramago as "the greatest living novelist" and considers him to be "a permanent part of the
Western canon", while
James Wood praises "the distinctive tone to his fiction because he narrates his novels as if he were someone both wise and ignorant."