Notes for thinking about the iberian presence in the work of José Saramago

Abstract

This article intends to reflect on the meaning of the Iberian question in the works of José Saramago, especially on how this perspective contri­butes to a dense analysis of the totalitarian systems that occupied Portu­gal and Spain for a long period and how the imaginary constructed by them still presents itself. as a paradigm to be questioned. In this sense, it will indicate formulations present, for example, in The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis (1984), The Stone Raft (1986) and Small Memories (2006), understanding that the repeated critical exercise of the author proposed, with vigour, a problematization of Iberian cultural identities and the way in which such identities dialogued with those existing in other geopoli­tical spaces. It is intended, therefore, to think about trans-Iberism in a broad way, realizing that, through it, Saramago established a socio-cul­tural analysis of the different links established by the Iberian countries, valuing the tensions and the strong dynamism present in the agency of such relationships.