Speech by President of the Government during tribute to José Saramago on 20th anniversary of his award of the Nobel Prize in Literature

2018.10.6

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Lanzarote

Dear Antonio, Prime Minister, dear Fernando, President of the Regional Government of the Canary Islands, dear Ángel Víctor, President of the Island Council, and also Loli, and the mayors who are with us today, and above all, dear Pilar, our dear host, thank you for your words, and of course, for having had the idea with Antonio of holding this delightful event, which arouses such emotions in all of us.

Dear friends,

As I was saying, thank you very much for your words, Pilar, and for having gathered us here, to pay tribute to José Saramago, on the twentieth anniversary of the award of the Nobel Prize in Literature. It is an honour to be here with Antonio and his wife. I'm sure that surrounded by all these books and after having visited his home that José Saramago would have been very happy to see us together here today, the Prime Ministers of Portugal and Spain.

It's always been said, Antonio, that Portugal and Spain were two countries that lived a good part of their history with their backs turned against one other; and unfortunately that's how it was for many years. But the democracy we won back at nearly the same time was what made us join forces again. Since then, these ties have only grow stronger, thanks among other things to the common belief we have - not only we and our governments, but above all our societies - in the current validity and in the future of this Iberian project that José Saramago championed so much, and of course in the European project that both of us support with absolute conviction, despite the ups and downs that we inevitably often have to suffer in Brussels.

Today we are joined by something that affects us deeply: the memory of José Saramago, the man and his work, who through the power of the word and mastery of his prose rediscovered for us the universal myths of the Portuguese culture and language. We saw it earlier at his home, as we see it in Fernando Pessoa, present in the unique work of genius that is The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis. With José Saramago, we not only know Portugal much better in Spain, but we also know ourselves better. This is where he lived for many years, as the President of the Regional Government of the Canary Islands said before; and he showed an immense fondness for this country, a fondness that remains in the memory of Spanish society as a whole.

This island, Lanzarote, is the most visible memory of him. As Pilar told us earlier, it is here that many friends, many intellectuals, personalities from a variety of fields, came on pilgrimage, from all corners, attracted above all by his generosity, but also by his wisdom. In the unique beauty of Lanzarote he found inspiration and peace; in literature, the freedom to create, imagine and also to raise awareness - something that Pilar said before - and in Pilar he not only found an excellent translator, but also a partner for life and something very important that she has reminded us of when we were entering the threshold of the house and she recalled some phrases from his books: a woman committed to universal causes, such as feminism, and whose work has allowed us to appreciate the stream of wisdom that came from the unique genius that was José Saramago.

The prestige and memory of José Saramago transcends any geographic limits. We have always said that he is a writer who vindicated the idea of Iberia, the Iberian Peninsula, as Pilar commented before; but I believe that his figure is universal not only from a literary but also from a moral standpoint.

Today we commemorate the award of a Nobel Prize that crowned a literary career that started early, but one that was recognised late, well into the 1980s: much later than his work undoubtedly deserved. And despite everything, it is worth recalling in his words that defeat - as José Saramago said - has something positive, and it is never final; and if death is a form of defeat, today we are celebrating the universal vitality of his work, a work that recreates in a unique way the mixture of the oral nature of the rural world of Portugal with the magical narrative of the Latin American novel.

We are honouring the creator and I believe it is important that today we lay claim to the creator, on the 20th anniversary of the Nobel Prize award; but I also believe that we should honour the man, the person, because José Saramago was much more than an exceptional writer, which without doubt he was: he was an upright human being, who did not want to escape to an ivory tower, from which people so often lose the sense of reality of things. He got involved in many very sensitive debates, always from a clear position that I believe that all of us who are here share, which is that of social justice; and he also lavished his literary mastery into raising the awareness of millions of readers through his novels. Blindness, The Cave and All the Names form a triptych on the state of the world that, far from having lost its validity, dear Pilar, has, my dear Antonio, gained validity in these turbulent and confusing times we live in.

I believe that there are many of us who at certain moments and in certain global situations ask ourselves what José Saramago would think, what he would suggest should be done, to address these challenges; and without doubt, I think, I would dare say, dear Pilar, taking advantage of the goodwill you have granted us, I think that he would ask us as an essential condition that we should support those who are weakest and we should be as critical as possible about the world as a form of lucidity. That we should be more committed to the causes that he at the time and through his literary and non-fiction work denounced with so much style and clarity; that we should take sides (and I believe that this is important as well, above all as something to tell to the younger generations): we have to take sides. We have to take sides on the environment, on the climate change we talked about when we were visiting the César Manrique Foundation (and here we have with us the directors of the Foundation); we must take sides, in short, in favour of human beings. In favour of a time in history that needs something Pilar commented on in her speech, which is a new humanism that is opposed to the discourse of exclusion, hatred and egoism, which so often impregnates speeches and public debate.

In short, in a unique ecosystem such as that of this island, Mr President of the Island Council, Lanzarote, a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve for the last 25 years, becomes a reminder of his words in the Nobel Prize acceptance speech that Pilar shared with us earlier. In them, he spoke with gratitude of his grandfather, of Jerónimo, and they are words that filled me with emotion on reading them. He said that when his grandfather Jerónimo, a shepherd and storyteller, felt that death was coming to get him, he said goodbye to the trees in his garden one by one, embracing them and crying, because he knew that he would never see them again.

For Saramago, social and literary commitment went hand-in-hand: the beauty of the world and of art seemed incompatible with the misery and injustice that still persist in the world. And that is why his example is so powerful and I also believe that we should proclaim that it is more necessary than ever, over eight years since he left us and twenty since he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.

We miss José Saramago. We feel, my dear Antonio, saudade for Saramago, but we still have his literary and human work with us, and we can use this inexhaustible legacy to analyse reality critically and transform it, at least as far as our possibilities allow us, dear Antonio, dear Fernando, dear President of the Island Council, Ángel Víctor, to transform our society a little by public involvement, by political action, so that we feel less alone and stronger in the daily search for justice, for equality and for human dignity. He never gave up on this battle, and in honour of his memory, I believe that we should not do so either.

Let me end by thanking you, Pilar, for this luxury of having shared your house with us, of having opened it to the eyes of the world, to Spanish society, Portuguese society, which is following us on the social media and the news media.

And I would like to tell you, my dear Antonio, that on 21 November, in Valladolid, at the Spanish-Portuguese Summit, we will have the opportunity to continue working for everything that joins Portugal and Spain together, which is a great deal.

We'll meet again there to build - I believe that's the right verb - the action we have to strive for that lies ahead of us, based on shared values, feelings, and also moral benchmarks such as what José Saramago has always been for Portugal and for Spain.

Thank you very much.

(Transcript edited by the State Secretariat for Communication)

Non official translation