The headquarters of the José Saramago Foundation, in the Casa dos Bicos in Lisbon, opens to the public this Wednesday. The César Manrique Foundation (FCM) has collaborated in the preparation of this opening, which has worked on the exhibition design of said headquarters. The FCM has been in charge of the room that is dedicated to showing manuscripts, documents, audiovisuals, photographs and first editions of the Nobel Prize for Literature.
The director of the FCM, Fernando Gómez Aguilera, has elaborated and directed the museographic proposal, whose production has been coordinated by the head of technical services of the FCM, Manuel Espino, with the collaboration of other departments of that institution from Lanzarote, such as the conservation and documentation departments. The Saramago Foundation exhibition is conceived as a plastic library, showing around four hundred books by Saramago in more than forty languages, and offers a tour of the writer's literary work, including dozens of original documents.
On the first floor of the headquarters, various audiovisual resources are shown integrated into the exhibition route, which contribute to teaching visitors the literary keys and the public commitment of the Portuguese author. Along with the bibliographic, graphic and audiovisual materials, significant objects from the Nobel Prize winner's life and activity can be seen, such as the typewriter he used to write his books in the 70s and 80s, his glasses, the dictionaries he used, his first collection of books, or some of the decorative figures he kept in his office.
Both the president of the FCM, José Juan Ramírez, and its director, Fernando Gómez Aguilera, are part of the Board of Trustees of the José Saramago Foundation and will attend the inauguration ceremony. Gómez Aguilera is also a member of the board of directors of the José Saramago Foundation, together with the president and widow of the writer, Pilar del Río, and the Portuguese lawyer José Soucena.
The writer José Saramago was a member of the Honorary Board of Trustees of the César Manrique Foundation and presented most of the books he published since arriving in Lanzarote in 1993 at its headquarters in Tahíche.
S.G. / ACN Press