Saramago, José

The Portuguese author José (de Sousa) Saramago was born in the small village of Azinhaga in Ribatejo Province, Portugal. His paternal grandparents were illiterate and earned a meagre living by breeding pigs. His parents were farmhands, but the family relocated to Lisbon when José was barely two years old. In the city, his father got a job as a police officer, though his financial circumstances never brightened very much. Young José was a clever schoolboy, but his parents could not afford to let him commence studies on a higher level. He never went to grammar school, instead he was put in a technical school, whereupon he landed a job as a car mechanic.