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the Spanish naval squadron under Admiral
P ASCUAL C ERVERA , which had found shelter
in the harbor of Santiago, was ordered to
make a sortie against the massive U.S. naval
forces waiting offshore. Their doomed effort
was commenced on the morning of July 8
and ended within a few hours in the
destruction or capture of Cervera's entire
squadron. Deprived of covering fire from
the Spanish warships and threatened with
bombardment by American artillery both
on land and sea, the garrison of Santiago
yielded, and with it, the entire island of
Cuba. The fall of P UERTO R ICO in August
and the mopping up of American opera-
tions in the P HILIPPINE I SLANDS , brought an
end to the war. Spain's last imperial outpost
in the Caribbean, like those in the Pacific,
was no more.
himself as a mechanic and factory hand.
Eventually he secured employment as a
minor civil servant, moved into journalism
and became deputy editor of a newspaper.
Saramago was nearly 60 before he began a
serious literary career but soon earned
praise for his novels, as well as writings in
other genres. An ardent but undisciplined
communist and a “tolerant atheist,” he pro-
voked a controversy in 1991 when he pub-
lished O evangelho segundo Jesus Cristo ( The
Gospel According to Jesus Christ ), which con-
servatives regarded as a blasphemous ver-
sion of the life of Christ. Disgusted that
what he regarded as reactionary views per-
sisted even in postrevolutionary Portugal,
he moved to the C ANARY I SLANDS . There he
was both lionized by the Spanish regional
authorities and involved in disputes with
local militants. He did not return to Portu-
gal until 1998 when the news that he had
been awarded the Nobel Prize in literature
made him a national hero. As the first Por-
tuguese recipient of this prize, he has
acquired a level of international recognition
gained by few of his countryfolk.
Saramago's best-known work is undoubt-
edly Baltasar and Blimunda (1982), a fantas-
tical novel set in 18th-century Portugal in
which the protagonists travel widely—
sometimes by flying—and institutions are
satirized, with special mockery reserved for
the church. Saramago also plays with his-
tory in Historia do cerco de Lisboa ( History of
the Siege of Lisbon, 1984), in which the alter-
ation of one word in an account of a deci-
sive medieval battle alters the entire fate of
the nation. In Todos os nomes ( All the Names,
1997) a record keeper becomes obsessed
with pursuing one particular individual
through mounds of archival material. The
setting of Ensaio sobre la cegueira ( Blindness,
São Tomé and Príncipe (São Tomé
e Príncipe)
These two islands in the Gulf of Guinea on
the Atlantic coast of Africa were acquired
by Portugal during her 15th-century voy-
ages aimed at discovering a water route to
the Indies. The islands, with an area of 330
and 42 square miles respectively, were
declared an “overseas province” of Portugal
in 1951. In 1975, as part of the general
abandonment of colonial rule, they became
an independent republic.
Saragossa
See Z ARAGOZA .
Saramago, José (1922- )
Portuguese writer
Born to a peasant family in the province of
Ribatejo, he left school early to support
 
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