ONCE has decided to commemorate the centenary of the birth of José Saramago with a coupon in his honor, which will be played next Sunday, June 19. Five and a half million coupons will commemorate the figure of the writer who became a Nobel Prize winner from his retirement in Lanzarote.
José Antonio López, territorial delegate of ONCE in the Canary Islands, José Juan Cruz, mayor of the Tías City Council, and Pilar del Río, president of the José Saramago Foundation, presented this coupon, which includes the phrase "Without a future, the present is useless, it is as if it did not exist" this Tuesday, in an event held at the José Saramago House Museum in Tías.
During the event, the organization presented a framed sheet with the ONCE coupon to the mayor of Tías and two braille volumes of the work “The Traveler's Suitcases” by the writer, for the José Saramago Foundation.
Minutes later, Lucía Aleida Martín, coordinator of the ONCE Braille Club in the Canary Islands, and Pilar del Río, president of the Saramago Foundation, proceeded to read a text in braille and ink called “Essay on Blindness.”
It should be remembered that the Portuguese writer was born in Azinhaga, Portugal, on November 16, 1922, and died in the town of Tías in 2010, in Lanzarote, after retiring to the Canary Islands.