Portugal

26
PORTUGAL IN DEPTH
2
PORTUGAL IN POPULAR CULTURE: BOOKS, MUSIC, & FILM
History
A Concise History of Portugal, by David
Birmingham is far too short at 209 pages
to capture the full sweep of Portuguese
history, but it is nonetheless a very readable
history for those who like at least a
brief preview of a country’s past before
landing there.
Another version of the same subject is
Portugal: A Companion History, by José
H. Saraiva. It will give you a sweeping saga
of the land you’re about to visit.
Portugal’s role abroad is best presented
in Charles Ralph Boxer’s Portuguese Seaborne
Empire. Since its initial publication
in 1969, this frequently reprinted book
has been the best volume for explaining
how an unimportant kingdom in western
Europe managed to build an empire
stretching from China to Brazil.
Fiction & Biography
The epic poem of Portugal, Os Lusíadas,
written in 1572 by the premier Portuguese
poet Luís Vaz de Camóes, celebrates the
Portuguese Age of Discovery. In 1987,
Penguin rereleased this timeless classic.
The best biography on Camóes himself
remains Aubrey Bell’s Luis de Camóes.
One of Portugal’s most beloved writers,
Eça de Queirós, wrote in the late 19th century.
Several of his best-known narratives
have been translated into English, notably
The Maias, The Illustrious House of
Ramires (New Directions Publishing,
1994), The Mandarin and Other Stories,
The City and the Mountains, The Relic,
The Sin of Father Amaro, and Dragon’s
Teeth. Queirós (1845–1900) was the most
realistic Portuguese novelist of his time, and
his works were much admired by Emile
Zola in France. The Maias is the best
known and the best of his works.
The great poet Fernando Pessoa (1888–
1935) is second only to Camóes in the
list of illustrious Portuguese writers. Some
of his works have been translated into
English. Pessoa is still beloved by the
Portuguese, and for decades he appeared
on the 100-escudo note before it went out
of circulation in 2002.
The Return of the Caravels, by
António Lobo Antunes, is an unusual
novel set in 1974. It brings back Portugal’s
history as an imperial power by “collective
memory,” as Vasco da Gama, Cabral, and
other explorers return to Lisbon, anchoring
their small but significant vessels
alongside the giant tankers of today.
José Saramago, winner of the Nobel
Prize for Literature (see “General,” above),
remains one of the best novelists of modern-day
Portugal. His Baltasar and Blimunda
is a magical account of a flying
machine and the construction of Mafra
Palace—it’s a delightful read.
The work New Portuguese Letters by
the “Three Marias” (Maria Isabel Barreno,
Maria Teresa Horta, and Maria Fátima
Velho da Costa), first published in Portugal
in 1972, is available in English. The
Portuguese government banned and confiscated
all copies and arrested its authors
on a charge of “outrage to public decency.”
They were acquitted 2 years later, and the
case became a cause célèbre for feminist
organizations around the world.
Wines
The finest book on the most famous of
Portuguese fortified wines, port, is Richard
Mayson’s Port and the Douro. This is
a comprehensive, articulate, and intriguing
work. You learn the history of port
from the 4th century up through modern
methods of bottling the wine today.
MUSIC
Arguably the oldest urban folk music in
the world, fado remains the soul music of
Portugal. From the 1940s until her death
in 1999, Amália Rodrigues was the top
diva fadista in Portugal. No one in the
post-millennium has dethroned her.
A current sensation, Ana Laíns, takes a
much more contemporary approach to