Death of Nobel Laureate

                                            Saramago, 87, won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1998.

His first novel - Country of Sin, a tale of peasants in crisis - was published in 1947, but he only became to be recognised for his work in his 50s.

The BBC reports Saramago first won international acclaim with Memorial do Convento in 1983, which was published in English in 1988 as Baltasar and Blimunda.

One of his best-known works is the novel Blindness, written in 1995, which tells the story of a country whose entire population lose their sight.