José Luis Gómez offers a poetic recital dedicated to José Saramago

“Saramago in company” is a poetic recital by José Luis Gómez, actor, stage director and member of the Royal Spanish Language Academy, in honor and memory of the unforgettable José Saramago.

The recital will take place this Saturday, December 4, at 8:00 p.m., at the Municipal Theater of Tías, and is part of the acts of the Centennial of José Saramago (1922-2022) organized by the Saramago Foundation, the Cabildo de Lanzarote, the City Council of Tías and the Government of the Canary Islands.

José Luis Gómez will recite verses from the author of “Memorial del Convento”, but also from other nobel prizes of the 20th century with whom he shared civic commitment, the ability to express the problems of his time, solidarity with the weak and a pulse to capture the continuous beat of life. Saramago was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1998, thus becoming the first Portuguese-language writer to win this award and who chose the island of Lanzarote as a place to live in the last years of his existence.

Tickets to listen to José Luis Gómez cost 10 euros, and can be purchased on the web www.culturalanzarote.com. The event is suitable for all audiences and has an estimated duration of 60 minutes.

José Luis Gómez (Huelva, 1940)

Actor, theater director, member of the Royal Spanish Academy and founder of the Teatro de La Abadía.

After training for several years in Poland, the United States, France and especially in Germany, he returned to Spain in 1971. His first projects as a director, actor and producer were Report for an Academy, by Franz Kafka; Gaspar, by Peter Handke, and The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, by Bertolt Brecht.

Between 1978 and 1981 he co-directed, together with Nuria Espert and Ramón Tamayo, the National Dramatic Center and, later, he assumed the direction of the Spanish Theater. After several years directing, producing and starring in plays in Spain, in 1992 he staged La Vida es Sueño, by Calderón de la Barca, in Paris, and in 1993 that of the opera Carmen, by Georges Bizet. Since then, he has focused on the conception, management and direction of the La Abadía Theater, inaugurated in 1995. His most recent works at La Abadía are Mio Cid, Unamuno: you will win, but you will not convince, Celestina, and End of the game.

José Luis Gómez has combined the scene with the cinema, where he has worked, among other directors, with Ricardo Franco, Gonzalo Suárez, Carlos Saura, Manuel Gutiérrez Aragón, Miguel Hermoso, Milos Forman and Pedro Almodóvar.

Among the many awards he has received, it is worth mentioning the Madrid Critics’ Gold Medal (1975) for Arturo Ui, the Award for Best Male Performance at the Cannes Film Festival (1976) for Pascual Duarte, the National Award for Theater (1988), the Knight’s Cross of the Order of Arts and Letters of the French Republic (1997), the Knight’s Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal German Republic (1997), the Gold Medal of the Circle de Bellas Artes (2001), the Gold Medal for Merit in Fine Arts from the Ministry of Culture (2005), the Culture Award from the Community of Madrid (2006), the Gold Medal from the Province of Huelva (2011) , the Grand Cross of the Order of the Dos de Mayo of the Community of Madrid (2014), Favorite Son of Andalusia (2018) and the Ercilla Award for best actor for Unamuno (2019).