This stone was very important to José Saramago. Made of volcanic rock, he found it on Lanzarote, where he lived. It had a symbolic meaning to Saramago. He said that up to and including his book Blindness, he was describing people as statues, metaphorically speaking, but then he began to take an interest in the stone, the material that statues are made of.
The stone was donated to the Nobel Prize Museum by the José Saramago Foundation and Pilar del Río in 2024.
Through these glasses, José Saramago observed the world and the people who lived in it. Perhaps you could say that the images that passed through these lenses eventually appeared in his books!
For Saramago’s nearest and dearest, however, these spectacles are associated with memories and grief. Saramago wore them on his deathbed, and when he died, his wife Pilar del Río removed them.
The glasses were donated to the Nobel Prize Museum by the José Saramago Foundation och Pilar del Río in 2024.
