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15 / 09 / 2004
José Saramago (Writer): Writers are poor devils that work
The Portuguese writer, José Saramago, insists that, “writers are just like any of the other 7 billion people who live in the world” during the session about writers as a role models of a society.
More information about Diversity and Identity in Narrative Language
Writer José Saramago insisted that, “writing is a job and that is often forgotten about”. According to Saramago, when people think of sculptors “it’s different because it’s a job you do with your hands”. He believes that, “it is necessary to vindicate writing, including surrealism’s automatic writing, because it’s involves rational creation, it can be measured and it puts words in order. Writers are poor devils that work.”
In relation to a question posed during the session about whether writers are moral role models in society, Saramago said that, “at no time in the past, or in this thing we call present or future, have writers been a moral role model for society”. Saramago explained that, “in world with a population of 7 billion people, the only reference we have, or that we have been forced to have, is the figure of the priest”. According to Saramago “priests are men who consider themselves the beholders of the truth and are able to convey this pacifically; they are convinced that theirs is the only truth, so they are not role models, but something else.”
Saramago explained that, “during the arrival of caravels to an unknown world, the role models were the priests and the soldiers and this is an authoritarian set up based on a single truth, a single model.”
Saramago explain that there are two types of thought “superficial thought that we control and subterraneous thought that is in the mind and surfaces on occasions”. According to Saramago, this second kind of thought “is what is referred to as inspiration.”
Saramago said: “I am not a role model; I’m not even a role model on the street where I live or my own home”. Saramago holds that his work expresses what he wants to say, what he has inside. Nevertheless, he admits that, “it is in writing and cannot be forgotten”. Saramago added that, “you can always get something out of a writer’s work; it has be useful for something”. Saramago acknowledged the following: “I have had role models, but that is private and it is an individual matter and if that occurs it means the author did not intend for it”.
Saramago also said that, “this work is just marvelous, but there’s no need to have the impression that you’re cleaning words”. According to Saramago, “there are clean words and others that will always be dirty; we have to be wise enough to separate them from each other. As writers, we have to live cleanly, though we also have to use dirty words because the world is full of both kinds.” Saramago added that, “there are words that used to be clean and are now dirty and maybe it is our fault for not cleaning them.”
Saramago spoke of the conflict in the Middle East and stated that, “if the Palestinians were the ones doing the attacking, the ones in power and the Israelis were the weak ones, the international community would have intervened and put and end to the situation; the United States would have come on the scene. Words are being used as an instrument of death”, added Saramago.
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