The Sunday Salon - Portuguese Literature

Ask and thou shall receive: the other day on Twitter, Eva and Hannah asked me about Portuguese books available in English. A few weeks before, someone else (Amanda, was that you?) had asked me for a few recommendations, and since I thought a few more of you might be interested, I decided to write a post on the subject.

I'm going to leave out Saramago because everyone knows about him already. And sadly, I'm also going to have to leave out some of my favourite authors, because their books aren't available in translation Having said that, it seems that more and more Portuguese authors are being translated, so on to what matters - the list:

• The Dedalus Book of Portuguese Fantasy - you saw this coming, didn't you? I actually want to get this book myself: I took a peek at the table of contents on Amazon, and it includes some authors I'm not familiar with. It also includes lots of 19th century classics, some ghost stories, and even some Modernists. I love that the book proudly identifies itself as fantasy - these stories are perhaps not what some readers would think of when they think of fantasy, but as you know my own definition of the genre is very wide and inclusive, and I love anthologies that use the same definition. The wonderful Dedalus Press actually has a whole series of fantasy anthologies from several corners of Europe that I'm very tempted to start collecting.


• Eça de Queirós: my second-favourite author on this list. He's sometimes called "the Portuguese Dickens", but comparisons to Zola or Balzac are more accurate. He's a nineteenth century realist, yes, but he also wrote fantasies, like The Mandarin. I'm going to go ahead and personally recommend him to Eva, as well as to those of you who love the classics. Some of the authors listed here are prose experimentalists, but Eça is an old-fashioned storyteller (not that the two are mutually exclusive, but you know what I mean). I love him for his irony, his perceptiveness, and his social insight.

• Equator by Miguel Sousa Tavares: I haven't read this book, the reason being that I dislike the author. He's also a political commentator, and he has done and said things I find repulsive, like standing up for the Noble Tradition of Bullfighting. I'm afraid that this has put me off his books. Don't let me put you off, though, as none of it actually says much about the book itself. Equator is set mostly in Africa in the early twentieth century, and it's about Portuguese colonialism. I have several friends who loved it, and they all tell me that the historical aspects and the sense of place are wonderful. I suppose that one of these days I'll get over myself and borrow a copy.
  
  
• The Book of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa: Pessoa is the favourite of mine I alluded to earlier, and I particularly love the The Book of Disquiet: it was my favourite book when I was seventeen and eighteen. Nowadays I'm more narrative-oriented, but I still love beautiful prose, and beautiful prose this is. It's not a novel, nor a collection of short stories, nor of essays. It's a collection of pieces of writing on life and loneliness and being a misfit; on insomnia and disquiet and death. Much to my joy, Philip Pullman included it in his Writer's Table at Waterstone's, so I'm going to let him convince you.
  
  
• Everything else Pessoa has written - He's written some prose, but above all he's a poet. I haven't made much time for poetry in the past few years, but I always return to his. I particularly recommend The Keeper of Sheeps, one of the loveliest things ever written. It makes me cry every time. Also, a detail that I think will entice some of you: Pessoa often cited Whitman as one of his biggest influences.
  
  
• Sophia de Mello Breyner is also a poet (I think I actually prefer Portuguese poets to Portuguese novelists). She also wrote some wonderful children's books, but sadly those haven't been translated. Fortunately, her sparse, elegant and moving poems have.
  
  
• When I started doing research for this post, I came across the Carcanet Press Aspects of Portugal series. It sounds worth checking out: it includes poetry, novels, and history books.
  
  
• José Luís Peixoto: My first, and so far only, experience with one of his novels was not a very positive one, but Lu recently read and loved The Implacable Order of Things.
  
  
• Gonçalo M. Tavares: Another youngish author, often paired with Peixoto. His novel Jerusalem is going to be published in November by Dalkey Archive Press.
  
  
• António Lobo Antunes: He's the other giant of contemporary Portuguese literature: big enough that there is a whole group of people who believe that he should have won the Nobel instead of Saramago (I don't have much of an opinion on this, and find these discussions a bit useless to be frank). Lobo Antunes is very hit or miss for me: sometimes he really moves me, other times he bores me. But don't take my word for it! The man has many fans, and quite a few of his books have been translated.
  
  
• Miguel Torga: I actually didn't know his books were available in English, so that was a nice surprise. Torga wrote short stories and poetry, both with a very strong sense of place and heavily influenced by the landscape of the Northeast of Portugal. It's a lovely region, so armchair travelling alone would be a good reason to read him. Here's a different edition of his short stories

There. I wish I could have included more than just one woman, but sadly it seems that not very many have been translated. I hope that those of you interested in reading more literature in translation will find this list useful. Happy Sunday, everyone!