Sunday, June 20, 2010

Schools : José Saramago, the Portuguese Nobel in Literature !







José Saramago Nobel Prize in Literature 1998
via SIC Notícias


“Se podes olhar, vê. Se podes ver, repara.”

José Saramago, Blindness

José Saramago, the Portuguese writer who won the Nobel Prize in Literature on the 26 November 1998. He died on June 18, 2010, at the age of 87. His ashes are in Lisbon under a 'oliveira' (olive tree)as his wishes near Foundation José Saramago.

The Nobel Prize in Literature 1998 was awarded to José Saramago:

"who with parables sustained by imagination, compassion and irony continually enables us once again to apprehend an elusory reality"

Nobel Prize





José Saramago 
Portuguese writer
Nobel Prize in Literature 1998

He lived in Spain and Portugal with his Spanish wife. After Saramago death, Pilar del Río, came to Portugal as the new director of Fundação José Saramago

The fondation will continue to promote and preserve the study of Saramago incredible literary work, correspondence and other works of the Portuguese Nobel Prize in Literature.

"Promover o estudo da obra literária do seu Instituidor bem como da sua correspondência e espólio e respectiva preservação".


Born to hard-scrabble origins, Saramago dropped out of school at 12 and worked as a car mechanic. After different jobs, he began a self-taught  full-time writer in his late 50s.





José Saramago/ AFP
Nobel Prize in Literature 1998
via SIC Notícias


Aged 87, Saramago was writing a blog Outros Cadernos de Saramago. He has a million followers on Facebook.

He wrote in November, 29, 1998:


"Começar a ler foi para mim como entrar num bosque pela primeira vez e encontrar-me, de repente, com todas as árvores, todas as flores, todos os pássaros. Quando fazes isso, o que te deslumbra é o conjunto. Não dizes: gosto desta árvore mais que das outras. Não, cada livro em que entrava, tomava-o como algo único."1)



José Saramago, Outros cadernos de Saramago

His message in this document is about the power of literacy!


Children's book:




A Maior Flor do Mundo
José Saramago
ilustrações: João Caetano
Caminho, 1st edition, 2001


Among his enormous work, Jose Saramago, the Portuguese Nobel Prize in Literature, wrote only a children's book A Maior Flor do Mundo (2001).


This children's book ant its animated video (Portuguese or Spanish language could be a beautiful motivation to read the book in your Languages lessons ( Portuguese or Spanish, native language or foreign language).






Animation:


The video is an animated version (2007) of his children's book. It's narrated and featured by José Saramago himself. There is a Spanish version too.

The animated movie won the best prize at "Animation at Anchorage Internacional Film Festival. He also has been nominated for the Goya 2008 as short film.






Il più grande fiore del mondo, e-book
José Saramago
illustrations: Emiliano Ponzi


Books & e-Books:

The book and e-book is translated in different languages: French, Italian, Spanish, Corean, Greek.

And so different countries as Bangladesh, Korea, Turkey. Teachers can find here.


Books, e-books & films:

Saramago wok is enormous. So prolific! Please visit his complete Bibliography here





Ensaio sobre a Cegueira
José Saramago
Caminho, 1995

"A magnificent parable of loss and disorientation and a vivid evocation of the horrors of the twentieth century, Blindness has swept the reading public with its powerful portrayal of man’s worst appetites and weaknesses-and man’s ultimately exhilarating spirit. The stunningly powerful novel of man’s will to survive against all odds."


Teachers and students can find the book/ e-book in so many languages here



Blindness
Fernando Meirelles, 2008

This novel Ensaio sobre a CegueiraBlindness was adapted to the cinema by Brazilian director Fernando Meirelles (2008). The film Blindness has been in competition at the Festival de Cannes 2008.








"He writes a prose of particularly luminous intensity, brilliantly rendered into English by his regular translator Giovanni Pontiero…Sweepingly ambitious."
The Times



Memorial do Convento
José Saramago, 1982


Education:

Different ideas, and different teaching levels to include José Saramago, Nobel Prize in Literature, into school curricula.


Levels:

Primary and K 12 schools: A Maior Flor do Mundo.






Das Memorial
José Saramago, 1982


Elementary schools: 


Memorial do Convento/ Das Memorial

"In early 18th-century Lisbon, Baltasar, a soldier who has lost his left hand in battle, falls in love with Blimunda, a young girl with visionary powers. From the day he follows her home from the auto-da-fé where her mother is burned at the stake, the two are bound body and soul by a love of unassailable strength. A third party shares their supper that evening: Padre Bartolomeu Lourenço, whose fantasy is to invent a flying machine. As the Crown and the Church clash, they pursue his impossible, not to mention heretical, dream of flight."






The Cave/ A Caverna
José Saramago


The Cave


"What distinguishes the book is the concern Saramago breathes over his characters; like potter's clay, they are patiently moulded into their best shape, retaining soft marks of memory"

Guardian/ Books



Claraboya/ Clarabóia
José Saramago,
la novela perdída, 2012



Claraboya: la novela perdida de José Saramago. 

"Claraboya es la puerta de entrada a Saramago y será un descubrimiento para cada lector. Como si un círculo perfecto se cerrara. Como si la muerte no existiera"


Pilar del Río





And of course so many more! Make your choice and invite your students to participation.


Secondary/Vocational education, College:





Blindness, 2008


Secondary/Vocational education: 

Teachers can propose different Saramago books: Novels, essays, chronicles, theatre, poetry, diary, memories...

There so many interesting books that teachers an students can read  students. Make a choice by inviting your students.

As a motivation, you can display the video of the film Blindness based on Saramago novel Ensaio sobre a Cegueira/ Blindness in Literature lessons.

But if you are studying Fernando Pessoa, must no miss O Ano da Morte de Ricardo Reis



O Ano da Morte de Ricardo Reis
José Saramago,1984


«Um tempo múltiplo. Labiríntico. As histórias das sociedades humanas. Ricardo Reis chega a Lisboa em finais de Dezembro de 1935. Fica até Setembro de 1936. 

Uma personagem vinda de uma outra ficção, a da heteronímia de Fernando Pessoa. E um movimento inverso, logo a começar: “Aqui onde o mar se acaba e a terra principia”; o virar ao contrário o verso de Camões: “Onde a terra acaba e o mar começa”. Em Camões, o movimento é da terra para o mar; no livro de Saramago temos Ricardo Reis a regressar a Portugal por mar. É substituído o movimento épico da partida. Mais uma vez, a história na escrita de Saramago

E as relações entre a vida e a morte. Ricardo Reis chega a Lisboa em finais de Dezembro e Fernando Pessoa morreu a 30 de Novembro. Ricardo Reis visita-o ao cemitério. Um tempo complexo.»



L'Année de  la mort de Ricardo Reis
José Saramago
éditions les Points


Ricardo Reis est l''un des hétéronymes du grand poète portugais Fernando Pessoa. Créature imaginaire, qui pourtant s''inscrit dans la réalité en signant une œuvre poétique importante, il devient, sous la plume de José Saramago, le personnage central d''une fiction romanesque. 

Dans une Lisbonne changeante, que les reflets du Tage font parfois paraître comme irréelle, Ricardo Reis poursuit une quête d''identité où se mêlent le vrai et le faux ; les morts côtoient les vivants, les sages, les fous, en un mystérieux jeu de miroirs.


Curricula: Literature and Languages, Arts, Multimedia.


“We use words to understand each other and even, sometimes, to find each other.”

José Saramago


G-Souto

20.06.2010

update 18.16.2023

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