Author José Saramago is in trouble again. His latest book, Cain, has sparked a string of denunciations, with one MEP even demanding that the Nobel Prize winner be stripped of his Portuguese citizenship. “The most controversial of Portuguese writers”, as Diario de Noticias has it, appeared surprised by the outrage of Catholics “because they do not read the Bible”. In a press conference, the Lisbon daily reports, Saramago declared that his only conclusion over this controversy is that “the church is untouchable”. Having stated that, “The God of the bible is not to be trusted”, or that the “bible is a rosary of incongruities”, he hopes that the book will be treated as “a literary work” and that religious protests should not degenerate into “an insult on the author’s person”.
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