Latest news and stories about book review in Portugal for expats and residents.
The book 'Edible Economics' promises bold ideas, irreverence, and a challenge to the dominant thinking in universities, but it is prudent to read it with Alka-Seltzer at hand — a critical essay by José Carlos Fernandes.
An enigmatic and brutal figure, romantic and wronged, Edmond Dantès, alias 'The Count of Monte Cristo', makes us desire the reparation of evil through violent and immoral means.
An exploration of Pedro Vieira's new essay collection, 'Vénus em Chamas', which examines the lives of seven women—including the Virgin Mary, Joan of Arc, and Sister Lúcia—whose stories have been shaped by religious narratives and historical ambiguity. The article also briefly reviews 'Almanaque do Pão' by Sérgio Luís de Carvalho and 'Os Livros Que Não Escrevi' by George Steiner.
The main Atlantic port of the Roman Empire, André Simões' Olisipo features powerful families, graffiti, and plenty of garum. It is the subject of the book 'Lusitania'.
A book that is a historical testimony and a kind of treatise on writing and reading, devoid of essentialist pretensions, taking both activities as forms of resistance.
She grew up with an alcoholic father who hid a second family and a submissive mother. In the book 'Análise', she provides an intimate (yet universal) account of heritage, trauma, and reconstruction. We spoke with the author.
An article about revisiting the 'classics', focusing on the works of José Saramago and Miguéis.
“Antes Que A Luz Se Apague” (Before the Light Goes Out) leads the reader to interpret the life of a couple who, moving from the city to the countryside, have their anxieties laid bare. Lara Moreno demands time from us, and the stillness she offers in return can be deceptive.
In 'Procura Nada', Eduardo Brito offers a lesson in narrative economy and formal inventiveness, threaded through by figures who disappeared from history without a trace.
'Páscoa Feliz', the first novella José Rodrigues Miguéis published in 1932, is the hallucinatory story of someone who presents himself as 'a man who obeyed'. The question remains: to whom?
It was only after all these years, when I heard American Tabloid in his voice rather than read it with my own, that I finally realised what the book was doing. Column by Rogério Casanova
All this (and more) is in Sexografias. The Peruvian writer and journalist has forged new paths and broken taboos. We spoke to her.
“Disorder and First Passion” was the novella that followed “The Magic Mountain”. In it, Thomas Mann evokes a domestic, family 'micro-episode', setting it against the chaos of the world.
In 'Technofeudalism', written in 2023 and now available here, Yanis Varoufakis offers a diagnosis of our times, not only in economic terms but also social ones.
The indignities of ageing and the approach of death permeate what has been billed as Julian Barnes's final novel. Opinion by Helena Vasconcelos
A book exploring the intersection of poetry and suicide, examining how poets address despair, mortality and the experience of loss.
In 2024, the philosopher Manon Garcia took a sabbatical and attended the trial in the Pelicot case. 'Living with Men' uses this particular horror as the starting point for a comprehensive and incisive analysis.
In “The Rain That Casts the Sahara's Sand”, it is not the plot that runs through the pages; it is the reader who traverses a territory, whether physical or emotional, in which the literary writing serves as a magnifying glass.
When everything calls for simplification, she goes in the opposite direction. She refuses to do less when she can do more. A Chuva que Lança a Areia do Saara is another example of this singular approach to literature.
In 'The End of the United States of America', Gonçalo M. Tavares returns to the epic form to create a new, wild and free genre, drawn from the immense power literature can wield. He also examines humanity through its dehumanisation.
In “A Literatura Universal em 100 Perguntas”, Felipe Díaz Pardo aims not only to inform but also to engage — yet Portuguese readers may feel that the 'universal' here is too 'Spanish'.
Jerry Brotton writes a fascinating book about how humanity has perceived space and how the North, South, East and West are “unstable ideas”, dependent on politics, belief and language.
“The End of the United States of America” deals with the country’s transformation into a dantesque landscape. It is commendable that it manages to avoid a propagandistic streak, but there is a distance that serves a mystifying function.
Could life coexist with death? What can we know? The limits of science and language are tested. Abraço is a novel that reads like a prayer — without God, but with faith in language.
