The Golden Age
The Prince of Poets is said to have been born in Lisbon, perhaps in 1524 or the following year - biographical details as imprecise as his life, romantic and full of grey areas. Probably a student in Coimbra, certainly a soldier in Morocco from where he returned one-eyed, Luís Vaz de Camões knew prison and freedom, the freedom of travels that took him to Goa, then to Macao, where, he says, in a cave he began writing the Lusiades. This famous epic poem, of which every Portuguese knows at least some of the nine thousand verses, evokes the journey of Vasco da Gama and recounts the founding myths of Portugal. A colossal work that earned its author comparisons with Dante and Virgil, it was published after many adventures, including a shipwreck from which it barely escaped. Of Luís Vaz de Camões' turbulent destiny, one thing remains certain: he died in 1580, on June 10 to be exact, the date his country celebrates as its national holiday. Less well known for his lyrical work, which was almost entirely published after his death, the poet already evoked that feeling that is so difficult to translate: saudade. This indefinable melancholy, yet imbued with hope, also permeates the novels of another Lisboan, Bernardim Ribeiro (1482-1552). In his Mémoires d'une jeune fille triste, or Livre des solitudes, he evokes tragedy - sentimental tragedy, of course. His heroine dreams herself into the destiny of three women whose misfortunes she is told about: could it be that you have to experience unlove to feel what love is? Readers can judge for themselves, as Phébus published a French version of this seminal text in 2003. On the theatrical side, it was Gil Vicente who made his mark on the century and the Portuguese court, before whom he performed his plays, which blended his language with Castilian, which he mastered perfectly. His life is just as poorly documented as that of his contemporaries, and his place and date of birth are still the subject of much speculation. Nevertheless, forty-four of his works have come down to us, including La Barque de l'enfer (The Boat of Hell ), to be discovered by Editions Chandeigne, who work tirelessly to transmit Portuguese-language literature. It was a time of great discoveries, and Lisbon was a port where many ships sailed to the horizon.
From disasters to the birth of a myth
The following years were less prosperous. Under Spanish domination and then the yoke of the Inquisition, Portugal was subjected to outside influences and then to auto-da-fés. In 1755, on the morning of November1st, the capital was shaken by a terrible earthquake that destroyed almost the entire city and killed tens of thousands of people. The catastrophe influenced Enlightenment philosophy, and Voltaire dedicated Le Poème sur le désastre de Lisbonne to it, later referring to it again in Candide. Between the lines, this was an attack on Leibniz and a reflection on the relationship between God and man, and the beginning of a long polemic between Voltaire and Rousseau.
Almost a century later, in 1854, Lisbon witnessed the death of João Baptista da Silva Leitão, better known as Viscount de Almeida Garrett. Born in Porto in 1799, he is considered one of the country's first Romantic authors, and also worked to collect Portuguese poetry in the oral tradition. Those lucky enough to read his Voyages dans mon pays will discover a highly personal cultural and political vision of the 19th century, which also celebrated, in 1888, the birth of a man who revolutionized the history of world literature. Pessoa, a strange name that means "person", was rarely used during his life as a writer, preferring pseudonyms, his "heteronyms", like so many facets of a complex, mystical personality. Although born in Lisbon, it was in South Africa that the young boy was raised, having followed his mother who, following her early widowhood, married the Portuguese consul in Durban. Fernando Pessoa learned English there, but returned to his native land in 1905, never to leave it again. In civilian life, he became a freelance translator; in private life, he became involved in literature, first through a diary he began in 1908, then through poems (fifty-two of which were collected under the title The Mad Fidder), and finallythrough the magazine Orpheu, which he founded in 1915 with Mário de Sá-Carneiro. The magazine was poorly received, and the third issue, although printed, was not distributed. He tried his hand at publishing, collaborating on other publications, and in 1934 brought out Message. It was the only work published during his lifetime, and was awarded the Antero de Quental prize, which Pessoa refused to collect, the ceremony being presided over by Salazar. He died a few months later, on November 20, 1935, in relative anonymity. The opening of his famous trunk, which contained over 20,000 documents signed by dozens of pseudonyms, prompted his heirs to publish a discreet booklet with a limited print run as a tribute. Such was the success that publishers asked for more texts, and so began a rigorous process of clearing the way that would last several decades. Of course, Le Livre de l'Intranquillité (The Book of Intranquillity ) is of particular interest, having been re-translated by Marie-Hélène Piwnik in 2018 under the title Livre(s) de l'inquiétude (Book(s) of Worry). In addition to fragments by Bernardo Soares and Vicente Guedes, the book now includes those by Baron de Teive. But Pessoa's work is so dense, so multiple, sometimes so contradictory, that this diary is merely a gateway to an incredible labyrinth in which an Italian enjoyed losing himself.
The revival
It's impossible to talk about Lisbon without mentioning Antonio Tabucchi. Born near Pisa in 1925, the son of a horse trader, he came to Paris to study literature, where he discovered Bureau de tabac, a poem by the beloved Pessoa, in translation. The shock was brutal, the addiction immediate. Tabucchi nurtured this literary obsession throughout his life, extending it to Portugal, which became his second homeland, whose language he learned, and to which he paid homage in Requiem in 1992. He was also director of the Italian Cultural Institute in Lisbon from 1987 to 1990, a journalist and teacher, dividing his time between several cities as a true European. Tabucchi, who died of cancer in 2012, was also the author of Nocturne indien (Prix Médicis étranger 1987), re-translated by Bernard Comment in 2015 for Gallimard, a hallucinatory, dreamlike plunge into the subcontinent, and Pereira prétend, a political book emblematic of resistance to censorship and fascism. Tabucchi's style is enchantingly beautiful, whatever language he chooses to write in.
José Saramago is also an innovator, and an indispensable one at that, being the first Portuguese writer to win the prestigious Nobel Prize for Literature in 1998. However, his origins did not destine him to be crowned with such an accolade. Born into a modest family, he was forced to take up an apprenticeship at an early age and decided to become a locksmith. Working in a variety of trades, he eventually turned to publishing, then journalism, and published his first novel, Terre du péché, in 1947, without much success, as demonstrated by the difficulty he had in getting his collection of poems, Os Poemas possiveis, published until 1966. The man devoted himself to politics, joining the Communist Party in 1969 and taking part in the Carnation Revolution in 1974. When the government changed sides, the final blow fell: he was fired from his important position at Diaro des Noticias. This was perhaps his chance to return to literature, and he worked tirelessly on this, delivering some thirty works, including Le Dieu Manchot (1982), L'Aveuglement (1995), La Lucidité (2004) and La Lucarne (2011). Saramago is known for experimenting with a style all his own: his dense texts leave no room for dialogue, and play with the constraints of punctuation. As for his stories, they sometimes take the form of myth, but above all they explore a kind of jouissive exaggeration: what would happen if 80% of those on the electoral roll decided to vote blank, or if almost the entire population suddenly went blind? In L'Année de la mort de Ricardo Reis, the author resurrects one of Pessoa's heteronyms, and imagines his return to Lisbon after the end of his exile in Brazil, a sort of homage from Master to Master.
His contemporary, António Lobo Antunes, born in the suburbs of Lisbon in 1942, also possesses a sharp pen, which he does not hesitate to use against political institutions and their compromises. Mainly published in France by Editions Bourgois, his arabesque language is skilfully rendered by translator Carlos Batista. While he evokes his hometown, his life and his disenchantments in Traité des passions de l'âme, L'Ordre naturel des choses and La Mort de Carlos Gardel, readers can also enjoy his reverence for Fellini in Explication des oiseaux. António Lobo Antunes, whose work is both acclaimed and studied, has been awarded numerous literary prizes, including the Camões in 2007, bringing his work full circle.
