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Portuguese Literature

abecedarian

Well-Known Member
I'm looking for Portuguese writers of all sorts..fiction,poetry, nonfiction..whatever. I'm aware of Jose Saramago, but surely he's not the only one in English translation. Saramago fans are certainly welcome to suggest their favorites however.
 
If you like criminal books I recommend Robert Wilson.
I really enjoyed his book "A small death in Lisbon".

I've read his books in Norwegian, and have read that they are orginally written in Portugese. Since I'm recommending this book to you I thought that I should find out more about Robert Wilson. A quik search at wikipedia.com really suprised me. Robert Wilson is born in England and just have currently resident in Portugal. So he is not a Portugese after all, but a great author anyway.
 
You can then cross reference those authors (from Wiki) to users on LibraryThing who have books by them. For example, I took a quick look and saw that a user named claudiadias is from Lisbon and has in her library books by Branco and Antunes (and probably others) - you could send her a message and I bet she would LOVE to help you.
 
Actually, I think Saramago is the only translated Portuguese writer :( Saramago has the luck of having a wife who owns a prominent Spanish publishing house that promotes his work all over the world; Pilar, to whom all Saramago novels are dedicated, also translates his work into Spanish herself. Saramago, at the time of his Nobel Prize victory, joked that Portugal didn't lack Nobel-worthy writers, it just lacked good promotion beyond borders. I think that's pretty true.

Anyway, you might be lucky with these:

Miguel Torga (you'll probably find one of his collecitions of short-stories around)

António Lobo Antunes (considered Saramago's arch-rival)

António Damásio (non-fiction; he wrote the famous Descarte's Error)

Luís de Camões (our great epic poet; every country has one, I guess)

Eça de Queiroz (19th naturalist novelist, in his time he was considered better than Flaubert, if that means something to you :D)

Eugénio de Andrade (great modern poet)

Fernando Pessoa (greatest poet of the 20th century)

Alberto Caeiro (Pessoa's teacher, my favourite Portuguese poet)

Ricardo Reis (early 20th century poet who wrote in the Classicist tradition)

Álvaro de Campos (another early 20th century poet, wrote in the futurist tradition

Bernardo Soares (undefinable nutcase; his only book, The Book of Disquiet, is brilliant; one of Europe's forgotten masterpieces)


If the discrepancy between poets and novelists seems strange, it's because the Portuguese are really a lot better at poetry than prose.

However, I suggest you just learn Portuguese; otherwise you'll be dead before the really good stuff gets translated into English.
 
Can't being doin' with all that foreign stuff

Ok buddy, who are you and what have you done with Kenny Shovel:p

Thanks everyone! I got to spend a little while looking up some of your suggestions..and I have a novel by Eca de Quieroz, The Relic, on request. There's one listing in Kansas so hopefully it will come and I won't have to learn Portuguese to enjoy it!
 
Arghh!

I listed Eça by default; it wasn't a serious suggestion!

But seriously now, I hope you enjoy it.

And if you ever want to try some poetry, go for Fernando Pessoa; you won't regret it :)
 
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