The body of Portuguese Nobel literature laureate Jose Saramago returned yesterday amid national mourning to the country he left some 17 years ago in a dispute over censorship.
Saramago, who was awarded the Nobel prize in 1998, died last Friday on the Spanish Canary island of Lanzarote at the age of 87.
His remains arrived in Lisbon afternoon on a Portuguese military aircraft accompanied by his wife, Spanish journalist Pilar del Rio, his daughter Violante, and Portugal's Minister of Culture, Gabriela Canavilhas.
Around 30 close friends and personalities were waiting on the tarmac at a military base in Lisbon for the arrival of the aircraft. His coffin was covered in a Portuguese flag, a symbol of the reconciliation between the nation and its prodigal son.
Saramago, whose works included Baltasar and Blimunda, The Gospel According to Jesus Christ and Blindness, died peacefully following a long illness, his foundation said.
In 1993 Saramago had left Portugal for the Canary Islands following the controversy surrounding The Gospel according to Jesus Christ, in which he portrayed Jesus losing his virginity with Mary Magdalene.
Denouncing the work as an attack on Portugal's religious heritage, the government removed Saramago's name from a list of candidates for the European Literary Prize, provoking his 'exile'.
President Anibal Cavaco Silva, who was prime minister at the time, was one of the first to pay tribute to Saramago last Friday, saying he left a vast body of work that "must be read and understood by generations to come".
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Zapatero and French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner led international tributes.
Saramago, who described himself as a "libertarian Communist", was an ardent defender of the poor and oppressed, and a supporter of the Palestinian and Western Sahara causes.
He said he wrote to understand a world which he described as "the seat of hell".
Born November 16, 1922 in Azinhaga, a village in central Portugal, Saramago published more than 30 works over 60 years, including novels, poetry, essays and plays.