Summer reading-Azorean authors

[John Raposo]

Dear Fellow Listers,

Greetings! I thought I would share some recommendations for summer readings. From Flores I have 3 authors:

Alfred Lewis’s (1902-1977) hauntingly beautiful semi autobiographical island, Home is an Island, was originally published in English and is one of those rare books by an Azorean that has now been translated from English into Portuguese!

Pedro da Silveira (1922- 2003) is probably the leading poet from what many now consider the Azorean school of literature. Poems in Absentia & Poems from The Island and the World (Bellis Azorica) by da Silveira, translated George Monteiro, et al. is now available.

Not much Roberto de Mesquita’s (1871-1923) poetry has been translated thus far, The following is my translation of one of his poems from Almas Cativas e Pomas Dispersos 1973, Pedro da Silveira, (editor):

Universality

           

                        Do you think that desolate places lie at rest

                        Like deserted cemeteries,

                        And that they, like the dead,

                        Live on in a gloomy sleep?

 

                        No! When the mad winds rush over

                        Their dense forests,

                        A mixed chorus of laments is loosed

                        And hopeless souls are tormented...

 

                        In the autumn, when the countryside is dying,

                        At the smooth vibration of the Angelus bell,

                        All things are awash in

                        Waves of anonymous longings.

                       

                        When the voices of life grow weak

                        And peace is as sad and as vast as the sea,

                        The moon appears, full of grace,

                       To speak to the chosen hearts that know her.    

Roberto de Mesquita,  (my translation). You’ll not be surprised if I tell you that these three Florentines are distantly related from each other,

Stormy Isles: An Azorean Tale by Vitorino Nemesio (1901-1978) was translated many years ago by Francisco Cota Fagundes. The original translation was considered by many readers to be awkward and difficult. Professor Fagundes has completely revised the original and the new revised translation is now available from (Bellis Azorica) It is a great novel to take along to the beach or read on the veranda.

Dark Stones: An Azorean Narrative,  José Dias de Melo (1925-2008) was translated by Gregory McNabb and published several years ago by Gávea-Brown Publications, Providence: It takes place mostly in Pico and in the US in the last years of the 19^th century to about the beginning of the great depression.

Enjoy!

John Miranda Raposo

[Lisa]

Thank you John!

Sent from my iPhone

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[Rosemarie Capodicci]

Thank you,John. 

Rosemarie

rca...@gmail.com

Researching Sao Jorge, Terceira, Graciosa, Faial and Pico, Azores,

Isola delle Femmine, Sant' Elia, Sicily

[Everett Moitoza]

Thank you so much John- I truly appreciate these intriguing works 

Best 

Everett Moitoza

Sent from my iPhone