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Almeida Faria


Almeida Faria - pintura de L. M. Gaspar

«I stood staring at the sea which brings us together and keeps us apart, with its high tides, low tides, revolutions, counter-revolutions, agitation and peace, combats of the contrary. The present is a powerful god, said Goethe through the mouth of Tasso, The force of the present makes me return, but in order to travel again, with or without you. I still have to find the island of the immortals.»

Cavaleiro Andante

Born in Montemor-o-Novo (Alentejo) in 1943. He graduated in Philosophy at the Lisbon University Faculty of Letters, and is currently lecturer in Aesthetics in the New University of Lisbon. Between 1968 and 1969 he was a "resident writer" on the Iowa International Writing Program (USA) and on the Berliner Künstlerprogramm (Federal Republique of Germany). In his literary activity there are collaborations in several collective publications, namely in French, German, Brazilian, Italian, Spanish, Swedish and American magazines.

Almeida Faria began his career as a novelist very early: at the age of only 19 he published Rumor Branco (1962), a bold and innovative novel from the point of view of language and the structure, which earned him the Revelation Prize from the Portuguese Writers' Association as well as a literary polemic with the neo-realistic currents which were then still dominant in Portuguese fiction writing.This trend for innovation and originality runs through the rest of his work, the nucleus of which is made up by the Tetralogia Lusitana, a group of novels centred on the saga of a family of Alentejan landowners in decay, in the period around the revolution of 25th of April 1974. The author narrates it as a new Diaspora of the Portuguese people, within a pulverisation of destinies (Lisbon, Venice, Luanda, São Paulo, etc.) wish transforms the narrative, from Lusitânia on, into an epistolary novel: These ways of escape, which may equally be physical places as well as oneiric refuges, create an intricate and tense network of relationships among the characters and among the different levels of reality. His latest novel, O Conquistador, takes up once again, on a level of parody which is rare in contemporary Portuguese literature, one of the principal Portuguese myths: that of the return of King Sebastian.

Books:

Fiction

Rumor Branco (novel), Lisbon, Portugália,1962; 4th printing, Caminho, 1992
A Paixão (novel), Lisbon, Portugália,1965; 8th printing, Caminho,1991
Cortes (novel), Lisbon, D. Quixote,1978; 3th printing; Caminho, l986
Lusitânia (novel), Lisbon, Edições 70, 1980, 5th printing, Caminho,1987
Cavaleiro Andante (novel), Lisbon, INCM, 1983; 3rd printing, Caminho, 1987
Os Passeios do Senhor Solitário (short story), Lisbon, Contexto,1982
O Conquistador (novel), Lisbon, Caminho, 1990

Essay:

Do Poeta Pintor ao Pintor Poeta – Apresentação de Spleen, de Mário Botas, Lisbon, IN-CM, 1988

Translations:

Spanish:

Lusitania (Lusitânia), Trans. Miguiel Viqueira, Madrid: Alfaguara,1985.
Conquistador (O Conquistador), Trans. Basilio Lozada. Barcelona: Tusquets,1997.

French:

La Passion (A Paixão), Trans. R. Quemserat. Paris; Galimard,1969; 2nd printing: Trans. rev. by Maryvonne Boudoy and Anne-Marie Quint. Paris: Belfond, 1988.
Chevalier Errant (Cavaleiro Andante), Trans: M. Boudoy end Anne-Marie Quint. Paris: Belfond,1986.
Déchirures (Cortes), Trans. Maryvonne Boudoy and Anne-Marie Quint. Paris: Belfond, 1989
Les promenades du revêur solitaire (Os Passeios do Sonhador Solitário), Trans. Michelle Giudicelli, in Revue des Deux Mondes, 1990; reprinted in Le Serpent à Plumes, Paris, 1994.
Lusitania (Lusitânia). Trans. Maryvonne Boudoy and Anne-Marie Quint. Paris: Belfond, 1991
Le Conquistador (O Conquistador). Trans. M. Boudoy and Anne-Marie Quint. Paris: Belfond, 1992.

German:

Passionstag (A Paixão). Trans. Curt Meyer-Clason. Frankfurt am Main: S. Fischer Verlag,1968.
Fragmente Einer Biographie (excerpts from Tetralogia Lusitana). Trans. Curt Meyer-Clason and Alrun Haase. Berlin: Literarisches Colloquium Berlin,1980).
Die Spaziergänge des einsamen Träumers, (Os Passeios do Sonhador Solitário). Trans. Curt Meyer-Clason. Freiburg: Beck & Glückler,1988.

Italian:

Le Passegiate del Sognatore Solitario (Os Passeios do Sonhador Solitário). Milan: Linea d'Ombra,1983.
La Passione (A Paixão). Trans, Domenico Conatini. Florence: Passigli,1997.

Dutsh:

Passie (A Paixão). Trans. Piet Jansen. Baarn: De Prom,1991.
Veroveraar (O Conquistador). Trans. August Willemsen, Amsterdam: J. M. Meulenhoff, 1997.

Greek:

AOYZITANIA (Lusitânia). Trans. Nikos Pratsinis, Athens: Medusa,1990.

Hungarian:

A magányos álmodozó sétái (Os Passeios...). Trans. Laura Lukács. Budapest: Európa Könykiadó,1985.

A hóditó (O Conquistador), Trans. Laura Lukács. Budapest: Ibisz,1995.

Swedish:

Brottstycken (Cortes). Trans. Marianne Eyre and Amadeu Batel. Stockolm; Norstedts,1980.
Lusitania (Lusitania). Trans. Marianne Eyre and Amadeu Batel. Stockolm: Norstedts,1982.

Prizes and Awards:

Portuguese Writers Association Revelation Prize,1962 (Rumor Branco)
Aquilino Ribeiro Prize, Lisbon Academy of Sciences,1978 (Cortes)
D. Dinis Prize, Casa de Mateus Fotindation,1981 (Lusitânia)
Portuguese Writers Association Original Fictian Prize,1983 (Cavaleiro Andante)

On his work:

Sein Bilderreichtum ist fast unerschöpflich, die Schönheit und Wandlungsfähigkeit seiner Gleichnisse oft übervältigend.

Neue Zürcher Zeitung

Eine ungeheuer reiche, brodelnde, von Bildern und Visionen überquellende Sprache, Hier ist ein Dichter von unerschöpflicher Kraft der Form und Fülle der Gesichte am Werk.

Welt am Sonntag

In dieser dichterisch geweiteten Sprache finden detaillierte Sachbeschreibungen und umgangssprachliche Wendungen ebenso ihren Platz wie Reflexionen über die bedrängenden Fragen des Menschlebens und kühne poetische Metaphern.

Stuttgarter Zeitung

Au début des années soixante, un Ecrivain encore presque adolescent fait ses débuts éclatants. Almeida Faria, élève de Vergílio Ferreira, se situe délibérement sur l'autre versant, plus abrupt, de ce même massif du roman existentiel. Rumeur blanche (1962) et surtout La passion (1965) annoncent un tempérement exceptionnel: un Rimbaud qui aurait lu Joyce et Faulkner. L'incipit de La passion impose d'emblée une écriture romanesque sans précedent au Portugal ni même peut-être ailleurs. (...) Avec le temps, l'écriture d'Almeida Faria a changé, mais l'imagination du romancier est restée tourmentée et fantastique. Le Chevalier errant (Cavaleiro Andante) est une adaptation du mythe du Graal, Le conquistador renouvelle le mythe sébastianiste, avec fantaisie et humour, et toujours avec ce découpage empruntée au cinéma, avec des points de vue différents. Il y a, chez lui, un mélange typiquement portugais de mélancolie et d'allégresse, de sensualité et d'idéalisme, de révolte et de nostalgie.

Robert Bréchon, in Georges Le Gentil, La Littérature Portugaise

Le roman épistolaire d'Almeida Faria développe tous les grands thèmes appartenant au Fonds propre, inaliénable, de l'esprit portugais: la mémoire, l'exil, la tristesse et la nostalgie, – surtout la nostalgie –, l'attente quasi mystique d'une ère enfin nouvelle, l'écart, géographique autant que temporel, déploré autant que cultivé...

Le Monde

Chevalier errant, le sens de ce beau titre n'apparaît qu'a la fin du livre, lorsque le lecteur a suivi chacun des personnages sur les chemins imprévisibles de la quête de vie, et lorsque lui-même, lecteur, comprend qu'il est entré dans le livre comme Galaad dans le Palais aventureux.

Le Quotidien de Paris

L'ironie sera sa couleur. Non la parodie, non le sarcasme, mais cette souriante ironie voltairienne qu'Almeida Faria maîtrise parfaitement.

Révolution

There exists in Almeida Faria something like a sacred pact with everything touched by his pen. Everything is in its place, even though unforeseen; everything bears witness, even the perception which tries to be confusing and multifarious; everything transcends and returns anew to its point of departure.

Books Abroad (USA)

Faria weaves a devilish black comedy of subtle double entendres on philosophical, linguistic and ideological levels (...) Almeida Faria's grand novel will surely provoke a scandal.

World Literature Today (USA)

Written with verve and humour, the narrative rises a pitch hitherto unknown in Portuguese fiction. Conquistador is an exceptionally impressive fable about the discovery of the self and the consciousness of the human predicament achieved through the path of the erotic.

Encyclopaedia Britannica

Book of the Year 1990



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