Pilar del Río
María del Pilar del Río Sánchez is a Spanish journalist, writer and translator. She is the president of José Saramago Foundation.
Biography
Pilar del Río was born in Castril in 1950, to Antonio and Carmen, the eldest of fifteen children. She worked as a journalist at TVE and Sevilla's Canal Sur.In 1986, del Río met the Portuguese writer José Saramago after she read all of his books that were translated into Spanish. They got married two years later, in 1988, and decided to live in Lisbon, moving afterwards in 1993 to Lanzarote, one of the Spanish Canary Islands. She lived with José Saramago until his death, in 2010, also translating many of Saramago's works into Spanish. In 2010, after her husband's death, del Río acquired Portuguese citizenship.
Pilar del Río is president of the José Saramago Foundation. On May 26, 2017 she was awarded the Luso-Spanish Arts and Culture Prize at the National Library of Spain.