José de Sousa Saramago was the first Portuguese writer to have been awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1998. Saramago is known for his imaginative blend of fantasy, fact and folklore. He takes on big subjects and big themes: In The Stone Raft he envisions a world in which Spain and Portugal are literally cut off from the rest of Europe. In Blindness, which was also made into a movie, the entire population of a city loses its sight.
