Madrid  - Nobel Literature laureate Portuguese author Jose Saramago on Wednesday urged US president-elect Barack Obama to "tear down the shame" represented by the US prison camp in Guantanamo, Cuba.

The winner of the 1998 Nobel Prize for literature, who lives on the Spanish Canary Island of Lanzarote, described Guantanamo as a "concentration and torture camp" in his Spanish-language blog.

Obama should also lift the embargo against Cuba and apologize to the Cuban people, advised Saramago, who belongs to the Portuguese Communist Party. (dpa)