 |
| José Saramago |
José Saramago
Saramago is a Portuguese writer who won the Nobel Prize
for Literature in 1998. He dropped out of grammar school
due to his family’s financial situation and later attended a
technical school where he received training to become a car
mechanic.
In his autobiography, Saramago wrote:
“I was born into a family of landless peasants . . . I was a good pupil at
primary school: in the second class I was writing with no spelling mistakes and the third and fourth classes were done in a single year. Then
I was moved up to the grammar school where I stayed two years, with
excellent marks in the first year, not so good in the second, but was well-liked by classmates and teachers.
Meanwhile my parents reached the conclusion that, in the absence
of resources, they could not go on keeping me in the grammar school.
The only alternative for me was to go to a technical school. And so it
was: for five years, I learned to be a mechanic. But surprisingly, the
syllabus at that time, though obviously technically-oriented, included,
besides French, a literature subject.
After finishing the course, I worked for two years as a mechanic at a
car repair shop. By that time I had already started to frequent, in its
evening opening hours, a public library in Lisbon. And it was there,
with no help or guidance except curiosity and the will to learn, that my
taste for reading developed and was refined.”
Words that come from the heart are never spoken, they get caught in the throat and can only be read in ones's eyes.-José Saramago
No human being can achieve all he or she desires in this life except in dreams, so good night all.-José Saramago
No comments:
Post a Comment