The latest addition to my website is Agustina Bessa-Luís‘s A Sibila [The Sibyl]. The novel tells the story of Quina, a Portuguese woman in a male-dominated society. Her father spends his money on women and gets involved in a bitter dispute over water rights which he loses, dying soon after. The cost to the family … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Mia Couto‘s O Bebedor de horizonte (The Drinker of Horizons). This is the final book in his Sands of the Emperor trilogy about Portugal’s colonial war in Mozambique in the nineteenth century. In this book, the Portuguese under Captain Joaquim Augusto Mouzinho de Albuquerque have defeated the Gaza … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Mia Couto‘s A Espada e a Azagaia (The Sword and the Spear). This the second book in his Sands of the Emperor trilogy about Portugal’s colonial war in Mozambique in the nineteenth century. It follows on from the first one and continues the story of Sergeant de Melo, … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Mia Couto‘s Mulheres de Cinzas (Woman of the Ashes). This is the first book in a trilogy about Portugal’s colonisation of the part of Africa that came to be Mozambique, at the end of the nineteenth century. We follow a village, Nkokolani, inhabited by the Chopi people. They … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Eduardo Sánchez Rugeles‘s El síndrome de Lisboa (The Lisbon Syndrome). The novel is set in Caracas, Venezuela, where repression by the authorities is at its height. One day, Lisbon disappears and we eventually find out it might have been hit by an asteroid. Meanwhile, our hero Fernando, whose … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Lídia Jorge‘s Vento Assobiando nas Gruas (The Wind Whistling in the Cranes). The Leandro family have owned a canning factory in the Algarve since 1908 with a ten year gap from 1975 when it was given to the workers following the Carnation Revolution. The factory is no longer … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Maria Judite de Carvalho‘s Os Armários Vazios (Empty Wardrobes). The novel tells the story of Dora Rosário, who marries Duarte young and has a daughter . Duarte, however, is totally devoid of ambition, despite being pushed by a forceful mother, and has a low-paying job and will not … Read more
The latest addition to my website is José de Almada Negreiros‘ Nome de Guerra [Nom de Guerre]. This is a Bildungsroman but also a mocking of the conventional romantic novel. Antunes, a thirty year old man from the provinces, is sent to Lisbon by his uncle in order to make a man of him. He … Read more
Our weekend in Porto introduced me to José de Almada Negreiros, a Portuguese writer and artist, of whom, I admit, I had never heard before. The Museu Nacional Soares dos Reis is a museum named after António Soares dos Reis, the Portuguese sculptor who left many of his works to the museum, after committing suicide … Read more
A long weekend in Porto revealed a few things, one of which is that it is wetter and colder in Porto than in (the South of) England. We visited the Livraria Lello, a bookshop famous for its appearance. As you can see from my not very good photo to the left, it is certainly an … Read more