Cain

José Saramago is one of the most important international writers of the last hundred years. Born in Portugal in 1922, he was in his sixties when he came to prominence as a writer with the publication of Baltasar and Blimunda. A huge body of work followed, translated into more than forty languages, and in 1998 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. Saramago died in June 2010.

Margaret Jull Costa has translated the works of many Spanish and Portuguese writers, among them novelists: Javier Marías, José Saramago and Eça de Queiroz, and poets: Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen, Mário de Sá-Carneiro, Fernando Pessoa and Ana Luísa Amaral. Her work has brought her numerous prizes, among them, the 2018 Premio Valle-Inclán for On the Edge by Rafael Chirbes. In 2013, she was appointed a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and, in 2014, she was awarded an OBE for services to literature.