French Literature Reviews - 2026
Sara Grünhagen, José Saramago and his Writing Workshop.
Novel and Narrative Prose
Just published:
The Portuguese writer José Saramago (1922-2010) is renowned for his vast and complex novelistic oeuvre, which earned him the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1998. Several of his novels stand out for how they revisit various narratives and literary canons: such is the case of The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis (1984) and The Gospel According to Jesus Christ (1991), which rank among the author's most significant works and are analyzed in detail in this essay. This study invites readers into Saramago's writing workshop to examine how his books are constructed from other creative works, appropriating texts and characters, as well as strategies and modes of representation from diverse traditions and media—ranging from the press to biblical texts, and from cinema to painting, among others. The narrative strategies analyzed in these two books are characteristic of Saramago and can be found throughout his entire body of work, thereby helping us understand the hallmarks of his literary signature. While José Saramago's writing reflects a specific moment in Portuguese history and literature, his work also commands attention because it engages in an ongoing critical and literary conversation—one that neither begins nor ends with him, nor closes in upon itself.
Sara Grünhagen holds a PhD in Portuguese Literature from Sorbonne Nouvelle University, in joint supervision with the University of Coimbra. A translator and author of several articles on Lusophone literature, she also co-edited the volume Characters and Figures: Conceptual and Critical Approaches (2021). She currently teaches at Sorbonne Nouvelle University.
The novels of José Saramago occupy a prominent place within twentieth-century Lusophone literature, engaging deeply with historical narratives, religious texts, and canonical figures. Scholars of modern narrative prose often examine how writers adapt existing traditions, borrowing strategies from diverse media such as cinema, journalism, and the visual arts to renew fictional forms.
Sara Grünhagen investigates the structural composition and narrative techniques of The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis and The Gospel According to Jesus Christ, highlighting methods of appropriation and representation that characterize the author's wider oeuvre. Readers interested in Portuguese literature and modern narrative techniques may find this analysis relevant to understanding how complex literary signatures are constructed through dialogue with diverse cultural sources.