Reviews 259 Elena Brugioni, Orlando Grossegesse and Paulo de Medeiros (eds), A Companion to João Paulo Borges Coelho: Rewriting the (Post)Colonial Remains (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2020). vi + 266 pages. Print and ebook. Reviewed by Hilary Owen (University of Oxford) This collection stands out as the first full-length work in English to bring the works of Borges Coelho to the critical reader in the anglosphere, complementing important article-length studies to date by scholars such as Stefan Helgesson. It presents us with an English translation of a short story by the Mozambican author and historian, João Paulo Borges Coelho, followed by nine chapters covering almost all of his published works of fiction. Offering an extremely rich array of themes and approaches, this volume performs a complex and demanding twofold task with efficacy and style. Firstly, the editors make an irrefutable case for regarding Borges Coelho as the talented, transnationally resonant contemporary writer that he is, reaching far beyond Mozambican literature to the interface of Portuguese-language writing with the global, worldliterature scene. Secondly, the nine authors in this work effectively demonstrate how Borges Coelho’s trajectory as a professional historian, a craftsman of creative fiction and a bearer of twentieth-century (post)colonial memory invites ongoing engagement with the trends that have shaped critical and theoretical thinking on (post)colonialism, poststructuralism, world-literature and world capitalist systems over the last thirty years. While a substantial body of highquality research exists on Borges Coelho in Portuguese, there is markedly less available in English. And in terms of translation into English, his work has been far outflanked by his countryman, Mozambique’s most canonical author, Mia Couto. While comparison with Couto might have been one obvious direction in which to take the current project, it is a definite and notable plus that none of the contributors has yielded to this temptation. Borges Coelho is rightly allowed to speak here entirely and brilliantly as his own man. His work is, like Couto’s, highly sensitive to the construction of Africa’s archives through the optic of a European language worldview, and this sensitivity is omnipresent in his work. However, while this affords Couto a rich vein of spontaneous poetic invention through hybridizations of African oral culture and Portuguese scripted sign, Borges Coelho is far less inclined to privilege Portuguese language as national metonym in the transcultural contact zone. The prose style which results is refreshingly readable and highly accessible, without sacrifice of self-reflexivity, political sophistication or ethical rigour. The Introduction to the volume provides a valuable overview not only, as is customary, of the individual chapters but also of the full literary oeuvre of Borges Coelho. This helps to situate what follows and the short plot summaries offer a useful diachronic mapping of the author’s evolving direction. This is followed by a beautiful new English translation by David Brookshaw of Borges Coelho’s short story ‘O pano encantado’. Aside from the obvious delight of having this Reviews 260 inclusion from a master translator of African literature in Portuguese, this serves as an unambiguous endorsement of the fact that we need to see more of Borges Coelho’s work in English, a point to which I will return. Chapter 2, by Paolo Israel, takes the unconventional but useful step of focusing on Borges Coelho’s professional career as a historian in the highly politicized context of knowledge production in Marxist-Leninist Mozambique, starting with his time working for TBARN (Centro de Estudos de Técnicas Básicas para o Aproveitamento dos Recursos Naturais) under the aegis of Aquino de Bragança’s famous Centro de Estudos Africanos (CEA) Universidade Eduardo Mondlane. Covering the late 1970s through to the 1990s, this chapter includes a fascinating foray into Borges Coelho’s early experiments with comic strips and ‘graphic novels’. Israel also makes us very aware of the subsequent difficulties which beset preservation, access and retrieval in respect of the material archive, encouraging us to view Borges Coelho’s decision to write postmodern historiographic metafiction in terms of a largely pragmatic choice, driven by his frustration with the archive’s obstructions and limitations. Finally, Israel’s chapter neatly establishes the possibility of...

Reviews 265 of the book, Kamila Krakowska Rodrigues analyses the appropriation and deconstruction of the intertexts of the ethnographic classics of Henri Junod and Theodor Koch-Grunberg in the process of (re)construction of the new national identities in Terra Somnambula [Sleepwalking Land] and Mario de Andrade’s Brazilian modernist classic Macunaíma. This essay seems to bridge the gap with the final essay, where Fernanda Vilar observes the process of (re) construction of memory through the contestation of European written sources in the trilogy about the Emperor of Gaza, Ngungunyane. Celina Martins, in her analysis of A Varanda do Frangipani [Under the Frangipani], unveils the problematics of rhizomatic identities focusing on the non-human element, the frangipani tree. Finally, Irene Marques addresses issues of female resistance and patriarchy, both in traditional African societies and among the colonizing element, in the novel Mulheres de Cinza [Women of Ashes]. It seems to me that there is a rather problematic contradiction in the text. Throughout the reading I had a feeling that the literary text was treated as a historical document, ignoring the fact that the black female voices are constructed by the white male writer. What is surprising is that Marques even quotes Tom Stennett when he points to this fact, but then dismisses it as an unfair attack on the writer without, in my opinion, problematizing the issue enough. In any case, aside from the few problematic aspects in some of the essays I pointed out above, I have no doubt that the book fulfills the promise made by its editor in the introduction. It is a publication that truly introduces a fresh look at Mia Couto’s literary production. It is also significant that it is a publication in English, something that not only signals the growing interest in the author’s work outside the ‘Lusophony’, but also proves the comparative capacity of his work and its worldwide versatility. Finally, it can be concluded that The Worlds of Mia Couto is an indispensable reference for Couto studies in the third decade of the twenty-first century. WReC — Warwick Research Collective, Desenvolvimento combinado e desigual: por uma nova teoria da literatura-mundial, trans. by Gabriela Beduschi Zanfelice (Campinas: Editora da Unicamp, 2020). 344 pages. Print. Reviewed by Emanuelle Santos (University of Birmingham) The Brazilian translation of the 2015 book by Warwick Research Collective (WReC) into Portuguese marks a certain volta pra casa of a way of thinking literature in a rather Tieta-esque fashion: seasoned on the flavours and ways of the cosmopolitan British academia and holding a certain altivez, an all too common undertone of the type of theory produced in the comparative literature — especially at the cores of the world-system. This translation opens to the Portuguese-speaking world an outstanding incursion on the territory of theoretical enquiry in comparative literary studies whose central premises depart from experiences of our own. The WReC’s conceptualization of worldliterature as the literature that registers the single but radically uneven capitalist Reviews 266 world-system in its form and content, relies on the alignment, or superposition, of two fundamental critical paradigms whose theorization is intrinsically linked to the Portuguese-speaking world: Immanuel Wallerstein’s world-systems theory, informed by the author’s extensive work on the liberation struggles in Portuguese-speaking Africa together with Aquino de Bragança; and Roberto Schwarz’s articulation of literary form as conteúdo sócio-histórico decantado stemming from the critic’s thinking on Brazilian literature, especially through the work of Machado de Assis. The result is a necessarily dense book whose dialectical relationship between form and content does not betray its critical hypothesis, thus posing a great translation challenge that Gabriela Beduschi Zanfelice has carried out with responsibility and competence. One of the characteristics of the work is the carving of a new terminology needed in order to fulfil the title’s promise of a ‘nova teoria da literatura-mundial’, putting the strategic and careful use of language at the centre of the argument. The hyphen in the WReC’s rendition of world-literature turns it into a concept that is radically different from the popular unhyphenated rendition of world literature; similarly, the...

It is always challenging to approach Brazilian literature – for its vitality and richness – through any simplistic scheme, which may make quite difficult a critic’s gesture of cutting and selecting of some condition in order to make it represent complex and partially indecipherable movements. At the same time, it is worth it to recall that Brazilian literature and arts are among the most powerful archives of the country’s functioning, capable of grasping some deep figures of a plural, inexhaustible and metamorphic society such as the Brazilian one, constantly crisscrossed by violent historical turbulences in the last two decades. With the aim of avoiding what could be a simple long list or a mapping of works, the present article, inspired by the principle of Foucauldian genealogy, tackles a couple of embryonic authors at the threshold of the present millennium. Their legacy, in a certain way, has been drafting the porous horizons of the contemporary literary tendencies, creating also strong echoes not only limited within the literary field but also in the strict, internal dialogue of a structural hendiadys for the Brazilian culture, that is, literature and society. In this perspective, authors such as Luiz Ruffato and Rubens Figueiredo have been forging through their works a peculiar literary space, which is turning their esthetical engagement in significant and exemplary beginnings of a new millennium’s literary season. It is an alternative way in order to rethink a different ontology of Brazilian literature, in harsh, controversial times.

Over thirty years into the (re)democratization process, significant gaps can be observed between Brazil’s past and present. Although the political transition has brought about some changes, it occurred under the tutelage of the army, meaning that there was no visible break with the past, which, in turn, has made it difficult for the country to establish deep and long-lasting transformations, as well as to face the legacy of dictatorship. The crimes committed by the dictatorial State, such as torture, murder, and forced disappearance, among other violations of human rights, remain unresolved. This study aims at tracing an outline of the creation process of the Brazilian Truth Commission (2012–14), and to accompany its course as it unfolded. In addition, we seek to develop a balance sheet regarding the contradictory National Truth Commission report, so as to contribute with analyses on its repercussions and how it relates to the current political setbacks. To this end, this text has taken advantage of unpublished or virtually unexplored documents and a comprehensive review of the existing bibliography on the subject, in order to present a critical balance of the National Truth Commission’s operation and the report it resulted in.

Portuguese Studies vol. 27 no. 1 (2011), 5–7© Modern Humanities Research Association 2011 Introduction Maria Lúcia Pallares-Burke The Brazilian Ambassador in London, His Excellency Carlos Augusto SantosNeves , had the excellent idea of holding a ‘Gilberto Freyre week’ in November 2009, along the lines of an earlier ‘Guimarães Rosa week’. The event took place partly in the Embassy and partly in the Department of Portuguese and Brazilian Studies at King’s College London. It is scarcely necessary to remind readers of this journal of the central importance of Gilberto Freyre (1900–87) in twentieth-century Brazilian culture. He has a good claim to be regarded not only as a leading social thinker and historian but also as the most famous intellectual of twentieth-century Brazil. He was active as a sociologist, a historian, a journalist, a cultural critic, a deputy in the Brazilian Assembly, a novelist, poet and artist. Like Lewis Mumford, whose work he admired, he was a ‘generalist’ rather than a specialist. Freyre’scareer,whichwasrichincomplexityandcontroversies,canbedescribed as oscillating over the decades between ‘canonization’ and ‘excommunication’. His achievements have been assessed in very different ways, including praises and criticisms that often tend to simplify and ignore his many paradoxes and ambiguities. Freyre is best known as the author of Casa-grande e senzala (1933), a study of the patriarchal family in the colonial period, especially on the sugar plantations of the Northeast. This highly original contribution to social history helped Brazilians to define their identity by emphasizing the importance of both miscegenation and cultural mixing in their past. Casa-grande also enjoyed a popular success that few history books can match. Besides more than forty editions in Portuguese and translations into nine other languages, this study has been ‘translated’ into a comic book and a television mini-series, while two directors (one of them Roberto Rossellini) planned to turn it into a film. Freyre’s many books — two of which will be discussed in some detail below — include a pioneering study of environmental history (Nordeste, 1937); an unorthodox textbook of sociology (Sociologia, 1945), in which he suggested that the most important contributions to the subject had been produced by great novelists such as Proust; and a history of late nineteenth-century Brazil (Ordem e Progresso, 1959), based in part on the replies to a questionnaire he sent to a thousand Brazilians born between 1850 and 1900. Freyre’s contributions to social theory include the idea of ‘Lusotropicalism’ (discussed by Bethencourt below), arguing that the sixteenth-century Portuguese were unusually well fitted for the task of colonization, whether in Africa, Asia or Brazil, thanks to their unusual adaptability to different climates and cultures. Maria Lúcia Pallares-Burke 6 More relevant to today’s problems, however, are his ideas about miscegenation and hybridity. Whether or not we support quotas for ‘blacks’ in Brazilian universities, whether or not we think that ‘mixed-race’ should be or become an official category, Freyre remains a reference point in the debate. Looking beyond Brazil, in an age of racist revival and racist violence, it appears that the world still has something to learn from Gilberto Freyre’s ‘mixophilia’ and his encouragement of harmony and fraternity. The programme for the Gilberto Freyre week, appropriately enough in the case of homage to a ‘generalist’, drew on scholars from three different disciplines: history, literature and anthropology. It included three lectures, by Professor Jeffrey Needell, University of Florida; Professor Ricardo Benzaquen, Universidade Federal de Rio de Janeiro: and Dr Maria Lúcia Pallares-Burke, Centre for Latin American Studies, University of Cambridge. Needell’s general survey of Freyre’s life and work, which serves as an introduction to the collection, stresses what he calls the ‘profoundly reactionary’ side of Freyre. By contrast, Pallares-Burke, focusing on a single book by Freyre, the important if neglected study Ingleses no Brasil, emphasizes its innovative features, while Benzaquen draws attention to Freyre’s literary art in an analysis of his collection of ghost stories, Assombrações do Recife Velho. In order to consider Freyre’s continuing relevance in the twenty-first century, a round table was devoted to the subject of cultural hybridity, a theme close to Freyre...

Portuguese Studies vol. 36 no. 1 (2020), 49–66© Modern Humanities Research Association 2020 Dulce Maria Cardoso Interview with Paulo de Medeiros and Jerónimo Pizarro1 Paulo de Medeiros: Here at the table, opposite me, is Dulce Maria Cardoso; next to me, Jerónimo Pizarro. Today is 31 October 2018. If we were in the United States it would be Halloween. Fortunately, here [in London at King’s College] it is just another day for work and pleasure. I wish to thank Dulce Maria Cardoso for kindly agreeing to speak to us today, and I would like to give the floor to Jerónimo, who will begin this interview. Jerónimo Pizarro: Good morning, Dulce. Paulo and I have agreed on the first question we would like to put to you about, so to speak, your view of the world, before entering into your oeuvre as such. Earlier in the conference, you said ‘we are in the centre of the hurricane right now’. Would you like to explain this imagery? Dulce Maria Cardoso: Good morning. It is a pleasure to be here with both of you. This image of the centre of the hurricane has to do with the idea that these times we live in are still apparently normal. We still don’t see it, at least in this part of the world; we still don’t realize the change that is taking place; we insist on maintaining our often dysfunctional routines, we still want to think the same way we thought before this big change took place. But all around us, and even in this part of the world, everything is changing at breakneck speed. And this is the first time that we, as a species, have faced a series of problems such as those related to climate change. And I don’t know how we’ll get out of this. Therefore, just as we now look at the nineteenth century and see the great mutations that led us to a way of existing in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, future generations will look at these times and see in them the genesis of change. The internet has put us all in touch with one another for the first time, or has at least given us the chance all to be in contact with one another. Social networks have played a major role in the latest elections, and two presidents who were clearly elected with the help of social networks, Trump and 1 In autumn 2018, King’s College London hosted an international conference to mark the twentieth anniversary of the award of the Nobel Prize in Literature to José Saramago. The event was generously supported by the Faculty of Arts & Humanities and the Camões Centre (KCL) as well as the Camões IP (Instituto de Cooperação e da Língua — Portugal). Two of the keynote speakers — Professors Paulo de Medeiros and Jerónimo Pizarro — interviewed Dulce Maria Cardoso on the second day of the conference. This interview, presented here, has been transcribed and translated into English by Dr João Silvestre and Dr Ana de Medeiros and provides new insights into Dulce Maria Cardoso’s work, including her latest novel — Eliete. Interview with Dulce Maria Cardoso 50 Bolsonaro, pose very serious threats for what we consider the societal advances rooted in the French and American revolutions. The Internet is also changing how we live in our private lives as much as it is having an impact on our public lives. These changes can be seen, for example, in the way we perceive the family. Moreover, the family has been in crisis for a long time. In fact, divorce was conceived and accepted in the first place because it was necessary to save the institution of marriage; divorce functioned as a kind of pressure valve. But now families are something else. And the collective is also something else. Political, social, affective breakdown is transforming us as well as others. JP: You mentioned a hurricane, and I remembered that you had often said that the Portuguese novel is lacking in thought, and that there is a lot of writing that is being produced without thought. And...

Reviews 108 into Saramago’s reflections on his own work before he discovered what was to become the successful formula for his mature work in the 1980s and his shifting relationships with many other significant figures in Portuguese cultural circles from the 1950s through to the 2000s. Vieira also provides thorough listings of works which Saramago translated from other languages into Portuguese; of books which he reviewed; and of short stories which he published in important journals such as Seara Nova and Vértice before he turned to writing as a fulltime profession in the 1970s. This work, therefore, will prove an invaluable tool of reference for those who wish to contextualize Saramago’s work within the fascinating shifting patterns of Portuguese political and cultural life over the past century, and (in spite of the challenging length of the volume) the informed but accessible discourse adopted by Vieira will do much to sustain and provoke further interest in his work. Duarte Drumond Braga, As Índias espirituais: Fernando Pessoa e o orient­ alismo português (Lisbon: Tinta-da-china, 2019). 327 pages. Print. Reviewed by Stefan Helgesson (Stockholm University) Using Edward Said’s Orientalism (1978) as a methodological point of reference, Duarte Drumond Braga investigates the longue durée of Orientalism in Portuguese literature. As the subtitle to his book indicates, Fernando Pessoa — particularly the Álvaro de Campos poem ‘Opiário’ — is of central importance to this study, but the theoretical and historical build-up to the Pessoa chapter takes up more than half the book, with good reason. There are two sides to Braga’s argument. The first concerns a crucial supplementation of Said’s account of Orientalism. Portugal, he demonstrates, has been both a producer and recipient of Orientalist discourse. And in both cases, Portugal is curiously external to Orientalism as it is described in Said’s famous work. Put differently, the early phase of Portuguese colonialism in Goa and Macau produces a distinctly Portuguese archive of Orientalist texts which both precede and are occluded by Said’s main focus, namely British and French Orientalism in the high-imperial nineteenth century. Conversely, however, Braga argues that there is also a distantiation relative to this primary Orientalism in Portugal itself. Nineteenth- and twentieth-century Portuguese writers become deeply affected by the British and French Orientalists, producing thereby an internal split in the Portuguese literary tradition. In addition, the late nineteenth century also evidences a further split between the interests of political power — focused at the time on Africa — and Orientalist discourse, which becomes largely a literary concern. This strikes me as an unusually wise deployment of the Saidian framework. The numerous wrinkles in Said’s magnum opus — which have generated decades of commentary by now — can easily inspire wholesale dismissals of Orientalism. But to do so would be to sacrifice the significant advances enabled Reviews 109 by Said’s deployment of Foucault’s discourse concept, namely the understanding of Orientalism as a self-confirming web of citations produced in the powerknowledge matrix of imperialism. In Braga’s study, this methodology serves to produce a finely nuanced account in which a wide number of Portuguese writers, including Camões, Fernão Mendes Pinto, Camilo Pessanha and even a contemporary poet such as Jorge Sousa Braga, are all shown to participate in this web of citations. The point, nonetheless, is that this storehouse of tropes can be used to very different ends. This leads us to the second aspect of Braga’s argument, which sets out to prove that there is a gradual inward and deconstructive turn in Portuguese Orientalism. Braga reads the internal distantiation mentioned above as generative of central tendencies in Portuguese literature: ‘O autor português moderno e contemporâneo escreve com base numa tradição cultural nascida de um distanciamento em relação ao passado que o permite reconstruir e textualizar como aurea aetas da nacionalidade, processo que atinge o seu ponto culminante na cultura neorromântica fin-de-siècle’ [The modern and contemporary Portuguese author writes on the basis of a cultural tradition born of a distancing in relation to the past, which allows him to reconstruct and textualize it as a golden age of nationality...