Portuguese Nobel Winner Jose Saramago

Jose Saramago, the only Portuguese writer to win the Nobel Prize for literature, has died at 87. Saramago, who held a series of jobs from car mechanic to newspaper early in his life and wrote most of his novels after the age of 60, won the Nobel in 1998.

He was another of the many controversial choices for the Nobel, and some of his novels were considered blasphemous by the Catholic Church. He was a staunch Communist and made many controversial remarks about the Middle East and the state of the world. He was sometimes likened to the magical realists of South America and was known for the difficulty of his prose. A full obituary will follow.