It is one of the first works of Jose Eduardo Agualusa that addresses the strange connections between persons through a fictionalized past.

Felix Ventura is albino. Antiquarian bookseller by profession, in his spare time he sells past. He lives in Angola, namely in Luanda, in a small villa in peaceful communion with a gecko who laughs and who is the narrator on call. It is from this set of improbable elements that we depart for an unpredictable narrative that emerges from the sale of the first pass to a war photographer, José Buchmann excited with his new life story he goes beyond the limits imposed by the fiction created by our reluctant "historian". This is the premise of an amazing book; again we see the magic of Africa thru the intangible writing of José Eduardo Agualusa, but at the same time palpable. I love the title. Arises the mystery and imagination looses before you even gaze the initial words. When reading the first pages I appreciate that the narrator of this book is a kind of lizard with a very curious peculiarity (in addition to others that I refrain from referring), audible laughs. Unlike other African writers I have mentioned in this magazine, Agualusa does not use the joyous cacophony of African language, it invades us with improbable stories of fantastic characters that are so unusual, they do not seen real, but because the background is Africa all appears to be entirely credible as strange as may seems. I do not know if you understood? Even better is to read this book and delight you with this vendor in the past. Good reading.

It is fiction based on the legend of Joseph of Risso and beautifully written by Jose Riço Direitinho.

The quality of a book should never be judged by the thickness of its cover. There are some readers who believe that good fiction requires at least 250 pages. It is utterly false. The book occupies the space that writer understand it needs, according to their latent need to strip the words that plague him and compulsively are immortalized on paper. Everything depends on how the story is told. This is the case of the "Breviary of evil inclinations," which out of curiosity has only 162 pages that delight us without the need of any further a comma or an exclamation point. It is a romance novel that recounts the life and death of Joseph Risso, a virtuous man, a healer, marked by fate in the back by a signal in the form of an oak leaf. It is a book full of flavors and aromas from teas that cure all kinds of ailments, from home remedies that heal the woes of love and plasters for wounds that insist on not healing, in the meantime, the author delights us with this story about the life of a man whom the people attribute a supernatural ability to heal and purge all evil from the village overlooking the neighboring Spain wrapped in a civil war. But life goes on at the whim of the seasons, in a land of legends and superstitions of which we are enthusiastic witnesses in a rich and fragrant narrative that transports us into a suspended world, in a Portugal lost in the mists of a collective memory averse to change but filled with fantastic, phantasmagorical and mythical characters rubbing the legendary, that never defraud us. It has been a while since I read something so beautifully written. Good reading.

It is a cathartic book that does not pretend to be a masterpiece of literature, but found his niche in the hearts of thousands of Portuguese who revise themselves in this story about courage, loss and love, whose epicenter is the migration to France. An account written by the journalist Julio Magalhaes.

You had in mind the idea of ​​describing a love story between two characters completely dissimilar in terms of education, social background and cultural condition?
Julio Magalhaes: It was clearly so. These are stories that I saw, which passed, that have materialized, and it was quite the scene of the sixties. There was a big hodgepodge between Portuguese and French led at the time, a great stir in this society. The Portuguese contributed much to the challenge that was launched at the time. I presented the book in France, because they are the largest foreign community residing there. Paris is home to about one million Portuguese who stay there forever. Some intermarried with Portuguese and others with French women. There was a great link between the two peoples. I wanted to approach this, different social levels, because the Portuguese had no possessions, were construction workers living in slums and there was a connection between them and the French of higher social ranks, some fell in love and made Love prevails in relation to what were these differences.

In France when you presented the book, they approached you and said: this is my story?
JM: Almost all of them. It was truly their story, told by several people who lived that and multiply that by thousands who emigrated to France, or in the case of returnees who came from Africa, or even in the case of soldiers who were fighting in the former colonies. That's the history of immigrants in the 60's. They all have lived these experiences, suffering and humiliation. Some lost their lives along the way, other friends. It is a generation of Portuguese who still is alive. It is a book based on true events and it sold a lot, because people felt that expressed their life. Not written with the idea of ​​being a great literary work, is a big story in a book that each reader feels that they lived that moment, it's a book about them.

You have said it more than once; you're not a writer, but a journalist who writes, why?
JM: First because it's true. And second to defend myself against a very powerful lobby which is the literature that does not give access to people who write.

But this distinction is not made in some countries.
JM: Yes, but in Portugal there is still a certain stigma about it. There are countries where this happens in Brazil for example, journalists write books. It is our obligation. To exercise this profession you need to know to write in Portuguese.

It is a raw picture of men, their intimacy and what they think about women. It is a book written by a woman, Ines Pedrosa, who wants to show a certain male chauvinism and misogyny still very alive in the Portuguese society.

I read a quote that great writers depict female characters and the same can be said of female writers who create excellent male characters.
Inês Pedrosa: I do not know if I said exactly that, I remember having said, when been asked if it is not very difficult for a woman talking about men, I remember to say that Tolstoy's Anna Karenina is an unforgettable character of literature and without a doubt it is a woman of flesh and blood, or Madame Bovary, they never asked this question to men.

So you are apologist of the idea?
IP: I think a writer has to get to know both women as men, because even for me will be more difficult, in a previous book called "in your hands," write about a protagonist in her eighties. It's harder to put me on the head of a woman who I had no experience and has an age that I do not have contrary to the men of my generation or so, as is the case in this book. It's like saying, what is a woman or a man in the abstract. A woman of Tras-os-Montes who never went to the city, never saw the sea, surely I have less knowledge of what goes on in her head than a city man who has a similar experience like me, mainly because the twentieth century the two genres were making an approach. Not total. In this book, I found it funny, this period of transition and accelerated in the chapter about relations between men and women that have certain rituals of masculinity and femininity which extend in an attempt to stay at home, in the known, while the new world already exists. One such instance is the dinner of friends around the football games it's even a behavior that is more typical of southern Europe at least. I have great friends in Brazil, Rio de Janeiro and a friend of this friend told me that I was inspired by the meetings of Paul's they also has this habit of friends getting together from high school that has nothing to do with their career paths. It's not a meeting between staff employment, it is boys who went through an adolescence together, a youth and has very different professions, different life experiences, not even have anything to do with each other on a day-to-day bases but maintains that communion as a family. And I it found amusing, because in the end is wider than I thought, I knew that my friend had many female friends, he is in the publishing world and I had no idea of this ritual dinner every two months. What do I approach in this book? This intimacy, this friendship that has yet culturally different characteristics of women's friendship and they are more permanent.

It's more true full?
IP: No, I think because is superficial is more permanent. Women live to give then self's and her friends are a mainstay much more violent, because a friendship between women when "ripping" is a sharp pain, sometimes worse than love break out, that a separation and men as in this case they live with small betrayals, commitments and that is the world of politics and business, expect less from each other and not anchor on friends. It is more a physical company and almost an animal solidarity.

There is a misogynist character? Peter although he speaks of women criticizes them constantly in the background and he does not like them.
IP: He is afraid of them, of course this gives rise to racism and misogyny, but he has life circumstances that lead to it. That oppressive mother. That character I wanted to "paint" in particular, these figures of patriarchal culture, which are also matriarchal the terrible power of mothers who have nothing, do of the children objects so that they have no autonomous development. I think he is not even aware that it is misogynistic. He loves his mother.

He resents her deep in the bottom, because he does not like she searches his things, interfere with his intimacy.
IP: He's creating myths with the difference, others and everything he does not understand. Of course it is misogynistic, but I think even that is more expanded, egoism is a form of male misogyny.

It is a novel written by J.Rentes Carvalho that touches several lives.

The story unlike what you may think does not begin in Amsterdam, but in the womb of Tras-os-Montes, a remote village somewhere in the interior of Portugal. It's the story dreamed or not, (the reader decides) of the love between a Dutch woman descent of a progressive, advanced and open society and a Portuguese illiterate man from a closed country in itself, isolated and uninformed. It's not your ordinary romance, there is a bitter tone in this story that ends in a very unusual way, surprising to say the least, well a bit unusual in the national literature. It is a fable, let us says it like that, told by Amadeu, best known as cat, to his childhood friend from which we never got to know the name, among the recesses of the mountain, where both are lost in this joint oblivious reverie of their unbearable everyday life that they lurk for different reasons. It is disturbing in the sense in which twenty years later, these two men reencounter again in this account comfort, which it is not strange since they both have dysfunctional personalities that motivate the contempt and disgust of the microcosm of society where they move, the village and the city of Braganza. The Dutch Lover is just the lifting of the veil of something much more disconcerting, vile, violent and insidious that turns out to be a reflection of the society we live in, although I find it hard to admit it, perhaps because it is a very crude description, without any kind of subterfuge. To thicken a certain mystery about this narrative, I only advance that contrary to what is stated repeatedly, many times that it became almost an absolute truth when it is not, we are not a people of mild manners, quite the contrary. But do not rely on my perception about this book, read and think about it. Good reading.

It has an unusual narrative that holds the reader from the first moment. It is an experience as it is not limited to written, is illustrated and even the letters characters change to give greater emphasis to the narrative. It is a metaphor for good and evil and that forces us to think and wonder as we read each chapter.

This book has a very unusual thread. The story that gives the title is somewhere in the middle, we do not understand very well how the link appears and then we are surprised. When you began to write you had that in mind?
Alfonso Cruz: Yes, the content on the history of Kokoschka doll is real. The painter Oskar Kokoschka ordered a replica of the woman he loved, Alma Mahler. It is a very romantic story, very unusual and unique, I think. I thought it was a good metaphor for a number of things in life that we live and therefore ultimately be the backdrop for everything that happens in the novel. There are a number of characters that function as this doll.

You select various types of letters for the same text, why? They were important in what sense?
AC: This is a book inside another book. Therefore, because it changes It has a cover and back cover, as is another book. After that changes because it has some missives that are important, had to look as if they had been written by a typewriter, and there is another part that was necessary to distinguish, because it is narrated in the first voice is so different from the rest.

Why chosen as a backdrop the second world war and the city of Dresden? You knew some of these stories? I know you travel a lot.
AC: The stories are invented, except the doll. But at the time I wanted to write a novel about a Jewish child who served as a consciousness to a very little intellectually gifted German, and when I reflected on that thought that the ideal scenario would be to put this story in Nazi Germany. The choice of Dresden is because it is a very special place, unlike other cities, has suffered greatly at the hands of allies. Not what we expected. Usually we know the cities that suffered under the yoke of the Nazis, but Dresden has also suffered much from the constant bombardment of the allied forces. And I wanted it to reflect a bit on this notion of good and evil, in this case the good guys destroy a city with an architectural design.

There is a persona that always has his mouth open, why?
AC: As I mentioned a moment ago he is not very gifted, he is always amazed at the things he sees. He has a very different notion of life, he is also a little child, and he sees the world a bit like children.

Jose Viale Moutinho is a personality larger than life, even in size. He is always attentive to the Portuguese world that surrounds him and that's what he writes about, collecting legends, tales and popular riddles. He is also a poet, novelist and translator of several literary works that always forgets because he has much to think in his restless mind.

In recent years you published several stories and legends of the culture of Madeira, why you felt the need to do it now?
Jose Viale Moutinho: It was not suddenly. For many years was one of the co-founders of the Portuguese society of anthropology and ethnography of Porto, it was an institution that was founded in 1927. Just long after the 25th of April, was rebuilt it in the 80s, because the institution because was in the hands of Professor Santos Junior and he made of that space his home, we called a general meeting and presented a different list with Victor Oliveira Jorge, an archaeologist and he was elected president. I was the general secretary of that organization, but even before that time I had already made other collections in 1978 a book about islands and novels of Madera, I have a songbook of the Portuguese people with the title "land, music and the others" and unpublished of Trinidade Coelho and the importance of her ethnographic work that came out in the anthropology works.

But what attracts these issues?
JVM: During my literary career I have always done research in the field of popular literature. It is the language of the people, what they like and that counts. This was important, nothing was systematized in Madera, there were collections around and some very incomplete, regarding the tales and legends. In the novel, this work was done by Pedro Ferrer and David Pinto Correia. There are also other literary possibilities, which are popular traditions of Madera that will come out now in a book.

You said that after writing the tales you forget all about them?
JVM: I wrote a book with the most popular Portuguese riddles are over a thousand and even knew some time and now I do not remember hardly any. It happens. Gets out of the head and it's over. I once did a review of a book that was a guide of the streets of Porto. I helped do that and then in the end did not know where they were. These things happen.

But, what publication will launch this week?
JVM: I will launch a translation that I made from a book by Balzac that was only in French and was not translated into Portuguese, speaks on how to pay the debts and satisfy your creditors without spending a cent. It's true! (Laughs)

It was the first book of Lidia Jorge published in 1980, which has been reissued recently by its 30th anniversary.

It is a book filled with symbolism reflecting the interior country with a double meaning. Describes the daily life of Vilamaninhos in the deep Portugal, shaken by a series of miraculous events that will be in the collective memory of the villagers while deftly portrays the mood of the characters and turns out to be a mirror of the idiosyncrasies of the Portuguese in those times. The magical world of Lidia Jorge confronted with yet another event that heralds a change in the world, the revolution of the carnations, but this historic moment in the village does not shake their day to day, since everything is moving in the same way, almost unchanged, without the so-called metamorphosis. The village just remembers the day that a serpent flew before the incredulous eyes of Jesuina Palha and the other witnesses, the mule of Joseph Pássaro Volante fled and a young man left the bus asking for Carma Prada, these were the unprecedented events that actually mark the lives of the people of Vilamaninhos and cause a change. But what? You will have read the book to know how, but I leave a warning, this reading is demanding, because of its linguistic wealth and the way it is written. Some chapters have unusual narrative, i.e., has a different structure which aims to highlight the mythic personalities of some of the characters and their magical experiences. At the time, "the days of prodigy" was considered one of the new literary revelations of the Portuguese language. A title well deserved it is worth recalling that, thirty years later. Happy reading!

A complete work that includes poetry, fictional production in prose and a short diary.

I speak of thee to the Stones of the Road

I speak of thee to the stones of the allies,
And the sun is blond like your look,
I speak to the river, which unfolds the spark,
Dresses as princesses and fairies;

I speak to the seagulls with unfolded wings,
Remembering white handkerchiefs wavings,
And the poles that stab the moonlight
In the solitude of the starry night;

I say the aspirations, dreams, desires
Where your soul, dizzy with victory
Rises to heaven a tower of my kisses!

And my cries of love, across the room,
Over the brocades of shining glory,
Are stars that tumble in my bosom!

I discovered the poetry of Florbela Espanca when I was very young. I had no more than 15 years of age and since that moment I was erred by her words. What most impressed me was her deep sorrow. It is possible to discern between the lines of her writing, without needing to resort to any kind of biography, her permanent latent unhappiness. Her insatiability for something that is so hard to achieve, absolute love. Redeemer. Eternal against the erosion of time. In her complete works, which includes some texts she wrote in prose, and I recently went back to reread, I came to feel again a great anguish and grief before the tragic outcome of her stories. It's almost like living in a permanent state of unhappiness. However, I am convinced that Florbela Espanca could never have written some of the best poems of the Portuguese language, during her short existence if she hadn't lived so hungry, restless and so torn by the reality, that in the limit stole a certain peace of mind of her life. In the end, we must truly suffer to master the emotions of the sublime. Happy reading!

It is a historical novel written by Alexandre Herculano, which leads us to a pre-Portugal.

Eurico loved Hermengarda, but it was not reciprocated. He thought. Suffering from love he relinquished his sword and surrendered himself to the priesthood, being ordained the priest of Carteia. In a twist of fate, his, true, our hero is once again forced to fight to stop the invasion of the Arabs and this time he takes on a secret identity: the black knight, the ultimate nightmare of enemy troops. Will Eurico have a new opportunity to win the affection of his beloved? Will he win the battles that lie ahead and that casts a shadow over the Iberian Peninsula? If you want to know, you have to read! AHHH! I know I am a greater killjoy, but it is worth recalling this historical novel written by Alexandre Herculaneum, which brings us to a time code of honor, moral and ethical values ​​that echo in the character of Eurico. The only detail that continues to make me great confusion about this novel is the names. Why is it that Portuguese authors, when they decided to elect them, tend to have the strangest choices. Eurico? Hermengarda? Well, tastes are not to be discussed, criticize yes. And although I do not much approve these onomastic, I like the plot and the swashbuckling adventures of our hero who is not yet Portuguese, but aims to be without knowing it. Another delicious detail of the writing of Herculano is the description he does of everything, not forgetting the smallest detail. We see before our eyes, well almost, the battlefield, the ruins, the caves where they hide, their costumes and their weapons. Just to finish, I leave a clue to the outcome, the writer was a romantic in the literary genre, and much to the taste of the classics, which do you think will be the final destination of our hero? Happy reading!