Jose Saramago gives a rare interview.

However controversial his views are, most agree that Saramago is a self-made man. His parents could not afford to keep him in grammar school, so at 13 he trained to become a car mechanic.

He spent the next three decades working as a locksmith, at a metal company and in a welfare agency, publishing his first novel in 1947 with no success.

From then on he virtually stopped writing, or so he thought until last year when he discovered boxes filled with manuscripts from that period that he had completely forgotten.