THE WORD TREE
Found in Translation – The Word Tree, translated by Margaret Jull Costa
This is the only one of Teolinda Gersão´s 12 novels available in English, and it has just been chosen as the best novel translated from Portuguese in the last three years.
You can see why: it´s as acute about childhood as it is about adults, and the writing is as sensuous as it is sad.
Amélia has left Portugal for pre-independence Mozambique, escaping her family and a failed relationship. She answered a newspaper advert from a man who “seeks a decent young woman aged 25 max”. He promised her beaches with pale sand. She got a lonely life as a dressmaker instead. The section of the novel dedicated to her is the most moving in the book, a series of pin-sharp revelations of envy and isolation. She wants to join the elite, and buys perfume she can´t afford. In the sizzling African heat, she dreams of owning fur coats to give the world she left behind a slap in the face. As a portrait of a desperate colonial it´s worthy of V.S.Naipaul.
But Gersão does youthful exuberance as well as she does middle-aged desolation. Amélia´s daughter Gita experiences things, as children do, in a sensory cascade. “Yes, everything in the yard danced”, she says, “the leaves, the earth, the spots of sunlight, the branches, the trees, the shadows.” Hers is an open-hearted, child´s-eye view, of the kind that sees pain as clearly as pleasure. “Go away and never come back”, Gita says of her mother.
Amelia´s resentment is the worm in the apple. Gersão´s skill is to make the apple sweet and the worm sympathetic.
SIMON WILLIS, INTELLIGENT LIFE, March/April 2013
Salazar’s forty-year dictatorship in Portugal and that country’s colonial wars in Africa cast their long shadows over Teolinda Gersão’s The Word Tree.
ADRIAN TAHOURDIN, TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT
In The Word Tree, Gersão has created Gita, a post-colonial hybrid subject, who in many ways stands in direct opposition to her nation’s colonial images: She is female, she is poor, she is disinterested in power, and at the close of the novel, she voyages to Portugal for the first time, taking her love and admiration for Africa with her.
KAREN SOTELINO, REVISTA DE LETRAS
The Word Tree is an atmospheric novel, which evokes a time and a place in impressive detail. Gita’s thoughts, as she embarks for Lisbon, speak to the memories of many who, like her, identified more with the land of their birth than they did with that from where their parents had originally migrated, a mother country they had only heard about: “The world that I’m leaving behind. Rivers, plantations, savannahs, palm groves, wide open spaces, broad horizons, and a tree that used to grow in my dreams and that reached up to the sky – what do they know of all that, how can they understand?”
DAVID BROOKSHAW, LUSO BRAZILIEN STUDIES
Before reading Teolinda Gersão’s vivid evocation of a girl’s coming-of-age in Africa, I knew little about the history of Mozambique, its Portuguese colonisers, the crushing poverty and its fight for independence. Gersão’s achievement is to use the personal stories of one family to shed light on Mozambique’s troubled past and the immigrant experience in Africa.
LUCY POPESCU, PURGE REVIW
LE CHEVAL DE SOLEIL (THE SUN HORSE)
Du haut de son cheval, Vitoria rêve de son cousin, Jeronimo, qu´elle va épouser dans quelques mois. Vitória est fascinante, imprévisible, et tandis qu´elle galope dans le vent, défiant de plus en plus son entourage, Jerónimo se réfugie dans la pratique de la chasse, lieu où il domine ses proies.La fête approche.Vitória saute le dernier obstacle et abandone Jerónimo. La fête s´enfuit devant le drame. Étrange roman, bâti au rhytme des allures cavallières et du martellement des battements du coeur. Tout en décrivant l´atmosphère passéiste d´une famille portugaise, l´auteur joue, avec talent, des difficultés relationnelles en amour, dans un monde “où rien ne coincide avec rien, où les choses ne sont jamais égales à l´idée qu´on s´en faisait”. Très vite le lecteur est emporté par la cadence de ce récit, à l´ecriture brillante, où s´entremêlent, avec virtuosité, l´irréalité du rêve, la violence des passions et le combat éffréné pour la vérité des choses.
NOTES BIBLIOGRAPHIQUES
L´auteur manie le lyrisme au galop.
L´HUMANITÉ
Michel Leiris avait apparenté la littérature à la tauromachie. Teolinda Gersão la lie à l´équitation dans cette insolite cavalcade romanesque. Au rythme du temps équestre – pas, trop, galop et saut – s´engage une lutte pour la passion et le pouvoir, magnifiquement servie par une écriture qui évoque à merveille l´inertie sensuelle du Portugal des années 20.
CONTEMPORAINE
LES ANGES (THE ANGELS)
Dans ce texte de Teolinda Gersão, court mais d’une rare densité poétique, pas de pathos. Une voix ténue exprime simplement le monde qui l’entoure. Le récit est d’une blancheur d’aube. Blancheur faite de beaucoup de silence, de ces moments où les anges passent.
SEAN JAMES ROSE, LIRE
Les Anges se présente comme un récit intérieur vif et tenace, marqué par une brièveté qui ne lui ôte en rien son entensité; (…) le caractère condensé du texte, la naïveté touchante de la narratrice, cette petite voix qui semble venir des profondeurs de son être, tout cela nous encourage à ranger ce récit parmi les livres qui comptent.
B. LONGRE, SITARTMAGAZINE
Dans «Os anjos», la jeune Ilda feuillette un almanach comme elle regarde le monde: en analphabète divertie par une succession d’images. Jusqu’au moment de la révélation: les yeux de l’enfant qui vont et viennent des images aux lettres et des lettres aux images; les lettres qui s’agglutinent en gerbe, en botte; les gerbes formant mots, devenant choses; ces choses que sont les mots devenues soudain pareilles; un autre monde, celui des signes, qui apparaît sous son oeil décillé, et la conscience de l’impossibilité à revenir en arrière d’une telle expérience. Ce n’est pas seulement à la lecture que cette jeune narratrice vient d’être initié, c’est au déchiffrement du monde.
Parmi les anges, dont Teolinda Gersão enseigne qu’il est tant d’espèces, celui qui vint à Marie n’apportait pas d’émerveillement plus grand que celui-ci.
BRIGITTE PAULINO-NETO, ALORS
Ce livre est si bref que, si on le résume, tout sera dit. Tout, sauf l´incroyable poésie, l´incroyable langue de Teolinda Gersão. On y entend la voix d´une petite fille, Ilda, don’t la mère glisse dans une espèce de folie non identifiée. Don le père boit trop. Dont le grand-père, malade, raconte l´histoire de son village englouti par les eaux. Ilda entend des voix qui la hantent. Ce petit livre est un grand roman. Longtemps après l´avoir refermé, on entend la voix d´Ilda, on aimerait la prendre dans ses bras et l´écouter encore. C´est la marque des chefs-d´oeuvre.
CHRISTOPHE TISON, COSMOPOLITAN
O SILÊNCIO (The Silence)
A milestone of post 1974 Portuguese fiction.
EDUARDO PRADO COELHO, JORNAL DE LETRAS
One of the best debuts in Portuguese fiction in recent time. Her first novel has been praised, sold out,a warded prizes. Her words are never squandered.Her writing is dense,never too much or too little,flawlessly measured.
CLARA FERREIRA ALVES, JORNAL DE LETRAS
PAISAGEM COM MULHER E MAR AO FUNDO (Landscape with Woman and Sea)
The wider thematic range (including topics such as Salazarism and political resistance) appears in a new perspective, at the subconscious level of instincts. Teolinda Gersão´s characters are constantly caught up in a game of underground forces which they never control, but which they at times influence definitively. Fascism,as depicted in this novel, is an (obviously loathsome) aspect of this game.If on one hand this has the effect of making it abstract – the reference is O.S (Oliveira Salazar) – on the other,it has the effect of revealing it in a light previously unseen in Portuguese fiction.
EDUARDO PRADO COELHO, JORNAL DE LETRAS
Die lange Zeit der Resignation,das allmaehliche Erwachen und der Akt der politischen Befreiung mit den jeweiligen subjektiven und persoenlichen Folgeerscheinungen,all dies spiegelt sich in den Romanen von T.G. wider,und zwar in einer Art und Weise,die sich deutlich ueber die konkrete politische Lage Portugals zu erheben vermag. Die Autorin beschreibt, wie in einem zaehen Entwicklungsprozess die ueber lange Zeit verinnerlichten beharrenden Kraefte und diejenigen des Aufbruchs und der Revolte immer wieder hart aufeinanderprallen, und sie zeichnet die beschwerlichen Wege der Befreiung und Oeffnung in allen erdenklichen Bereichen von Gesellschaft,Kunst und Kultur in ihrer ganzen Vielfalt nach.
GESA HASEBRINK, DIE SCHWESTERN DER MARIANNE ALCOFORADO
Der neue literarische Diskurs versteht sich (bei T.G.) als Suche,welche die gewohnten Verbindungen der Sprache zur Realitaet aufbrechen soll. Auf diese Weise koennen soziale Konventionen, Autoritaeten, Marginalisierungen und Entfremdungen hinterfragt und Wege zur Ueberwindung aufgewiesen werden.Die Romanen stehen zugleich in der Tradition des Subjektivismus und der Sozialkritik.Die Annaeherung an die Aussenrealitaet dient der Verhinderung von Herrschaftsstrukturen,die nun von einer klaren,individuell gefestigten Position angegriffen werden koennen,deren Erforschung sich das subjektivische Interesse widmet.
HELMUT SIEPMANN, PORTUGIESISCHE LITERATUR DES 19.U.20. JAHRHUNDERS
OS GUARDA-CHUVAS CINTILANTES (Shimmering Umbrellas)
Le désir manque de sujet fixe,as Deleuze righly said. The subject here is the problem of identity in relation to different universes, different everyday experiences.
CASIMIRO DE BRITO, COLÓQUIO/LETRAS
The relationship between writing and time is very particular and central to the text; the writer plays with references on a variety of levels : social, fantastic, dreamlike, playfyll, ideological, and conceptual.
MARIA ALZIRA SEIXO, A PALAVRA DO ROMANCE
Eine Parodie auf das Genre des Tagebuchs.
GESA HASEBRINK, WEGE DER ERNEUERUNG – PORTUGIESISCHE ROMANE NACH DER ‘NELKENREVOLUTION’
Die Heterodoxie erweist sich als Heterogenitaet, als bewusste und spielerische Abweichung von der traditionellen Gattung des Tagebuchs.
RAINER HESS, DER PORTUGIESISCHE ROMAN DER GEGENWART
O CAVALO DE SOL (The Sun Horse)
I believe this is the most important and brilliant work of Portuguese fiction this year.
JOSÉ EMÍLIO NELSON, DIÁRIO DE NOTÍCIAS
An exercise of precision,in which nothing is left to chance. A luminous novel,intense in its concise style, vivid in its tight construction, and playful, as life and emotions intersect in the writing.
ANA TERESA DIOGO, COLÓQUIO/LETRAS
An extraordinary novel.The best Teolinda Gersão has written so far,which is no small thing to say.One of those books to be kept close at hand, in order to take it up when prompted by memory and the dictates of the heart.As I begin to write this review I am aware of a sensation,or sentiment,which I rarely feel with such intensity.
A CASA DA CABEÇA DE CAVALO (The House of the Horse’s Head)
T. Gersão´s novel, blending several narrative models,such as feuilleton,fantastic narrative,and historiographical metafiction,proposes a new approach to events and concepts accepted by logic and adopts ludic and humorous forms of discourse concerning death and History as a desconstructing strategy.
Key words: contemporary Portuguese fiction; humour and death; fantastic narrative; jocosity.
MARIA THERESA ABELHA ALVES, SCRIPTA
A magnificent novel,in which History is a pretext for the pleasure of writing.
RUI ROCHA, EXPRESSO
This is fiction,”the fiction of truth”.The game to which we surrender,led by the free and steady hand of a tireless and magnificent storyteller.
FERNANDO J. B. MARTINHO, JORNAL DE LETRAS
A ÁRVORE DAS PALAVRAS (The Word Tree)
A return to Lourenço Marques of the colonial era. The novel is not only a record of this bygone period,of the city,the countryside, the people, but Teolinda Gersão´s crystalline,flowing writing emanates understanding without any touch of sentimentality or
colonial nostalgia,the empathy of someone who has known and lived those times.Teolinda knows how to write about the war and the consequent gradual physical and psychological transformation of a land and its people.It is a pleasure to read: lucid, truthful, deeply
felt and thoughtful.
PEDRO TEIXEIRA NEVES, SEMANÁRIO
A masterly narrative,the supreme art of simplicity.Lourenço Marques emerges magically intact and untouched,as in the past.
LINDA SANTOS COSTA, PÚBLICO
In our literature, Africa has seemed a relatively vacant place. A Árvore das Palavras has appeared to fill this gap. A Árvore das Palavras is a novel to remember.
CARLOS REIS, JORNAL DE LETRAS
OS TECLADOS (The Keyboards)
A “Bildungsroman”,in which the author surpasses herself. A philosophical reflection on the relationship between art and life,the ironies of one and the tricks played by the other.Read it slowly because it ends quickly.
HELENA BARBAS, EXPRESSO
In a brief narrative,the author manages to give her protagonist immense psychological depth. The metaphor of the trapeze (“it was not the public eye that held the acrobat,everything took place between her and the swing on which she balanced”) does not appear by chance in this sublimely musical book. It reads as a fable, in which creation is meant for its own sake and the only legitimate struggle of the creator is with himself.
RODRIGUES DA SILVA, JORNAL DE LETRAS
Using music as a measure of all things, Os Teclados by Teolinda Gersão explores destinies through metaphors of musical harmony. Rarely in the history of fiction have the two kinds of artistic expression words and music been so united.
FÁBIO LUCAS, JORNAL DA TARDE, SÃO PAULO
OS ANJOS (The Angels)
With this dream-like, novella-fable, Teolinda Gersão has managed to create new and suprising effects through elements as archaic as human instincts, and their integration in culture.
LINDA SANTOS COSTA, PÚBLICO
A perfect novella.
JOSÉ EMÍLIO NELSON, JORNAL DE NOTÍCIAS
I would call this story, above all ,the descent into a double memory. A descent that rises up within us until we hear the unorthodox angels singing. Os Anjos against the flow? So be it.
JORGE LISTOPAD, JORNAL DE LETRAS
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