Portugal is the guest country at the International Book Fair in Bogotá (also known as FILBo), which opens this month, reflecting an upsurge in interest in Portuguese-language literature. José Luís Peixoto and Inês Pedrosa, both young Portuguese authors, are among the 23 writers who will feature at the Colombian event. Works by legendary figures such as Fernando Pessoa, Luís Vaz de Camões and Eça de Queirós will also feature, as well as that of the more contemporary José Saramago and António Lobo Antunes. According to Público newspaper, over 30,000 books will be available within a 3,000-square-meter pavilion. Exhibits include Lisbon Ground, first shown at the Venice Biennale of … [Read more...] about Portugal stakes a claim at Colombian book fair
portugal news
The great Portuguese hollowing out
As Portuguese President Aníbal Cavaco Silva once put it, "A country without children is a nation without a future." He was, of course, referring to his country’s ultra-low birth rate, which is just over 1.3 TFR and has been below replacement level (2.1 TFR) since the early 1980s. In 2012 only just over 90,000 children were born in the country, the lowest number in more than a century – you need to go back to the 19th century to find numbers like those we have been seeing since the crisis really took hold. But added to this longstanding, yet unaddressed, problem there is now another just as dangerous one. High unemployment levels and the lack of job opportunities are leading an increasing … [Read more...] about The great Portuguese hollowing out
Joana Vasconcelos
Portugal has had little to cheer about in 2012, with its post-bailout economy still struggling to bounce back under the weight of austerity. But Lisbon-based artist Joana Vasconcelos has had a year to remember. She was already a fêted figure in the world of sculpture and installation art, having exhibited at the 2005 Venice Biennale, Sao Paulo and Moscow. But this year, the Paris-born Vasconcelos came full circle, returning to France to show her work at the Palace of Versailles. In the process, she became the first woman to do so and took on what she described as “the most fascinating challenge” of an already remarkable career. … [Read more...] about Joana Vasconcelos
Vasconcelos finds a Baroque home in Versailles
Lisbon-based Joana Vasconcelos is the latest artist to be featured at the annual contemporary art exhibition at the Palace of Versailles, France. Joana Vasconcelos Versailles includes a number of works, including site-specific pieces, within the state apartments and gardens of the Baroque palace. Born in Paris, Vasconcelos studied art in Lisbon, where she now lives and works. She has won a number of prizes including the Prémio EDP Novos Artistas in 2000 and the Fundação Berardo’s The Winner Takes it All in 2006, resulting in Néctar, which sits at the entrance of the Museu Colecção Berardo in Lisbon. She captured international attention with her participation at the 2005 Venice Biennale … [Read more...] about Vasconcelos finds a Baroque home in Versailles
Portugal’s spy who came in from the cold
Jorge Silva Carvalho is a Portuguese former spy who was in charge of the country’s external intelligence services from 2008 until 2011. Well-connected and ambitious, Carvalho had dreamed of one day being appointed interior minister. But instead he was seduced, in 2011, by a better job: internal “agent” at a private company, Ongoing, a media outlet run by Nuno Vasconcelos with Angolan capital. But the former spy is now in the eye of the hurricane, after public prosecutors charged him with abusing his position, corruption and violating state secrets. According to those charges, Carvalho, after signing a lucrative contract with Ongoing, used his connections within the Portuguese secret … [Read more...] about Portugal’s spy who came in from the cold
The Outsiders!
Music doesn’t generally create history, but accompanies it for better or for worse. Same tides, same flow: rising with human comeuppance, or descending alongside a collective human crash. And the human race itself is like water: slowly flowing to the lowest point, changing its composition to rise to the top, only to fall down again. So that music is like water, we can’t live without it but it also celebrates our funerals. Horace Silver and Paul Gonsalves were two Portuguese Cape Verdeans, who made an enormous contribution to American Jazz by creating beautiful rhythmic flow, just ask Duke Ellington. I’m not a Fadista so I don’t know if there were any outside influences on the … [Read more...] about The Outsiders!
O Lusitania
Tabucchi loves Lisbon, the film director Wenders loves Lisbon, and I much like Lisbon: the sweet urban decadence of it, the formidable Atlantic ocean of it making it Europe’s last vestige on the southern flank, but also an easy, open way to the new world, as far as the immensely flowing Amazon. A city in a nation well positioned for potential greatness, but Portugal still needing to be represented in the international literary canon with its only available candidate at one point, the poet Fernando Pessoa it seems. A chap through his compositions and spiritual meanderings contributing to its name, ironically named pessoa, meaning person in Portuguese, yet a man cleverly made up of many … [Read more...] about O Lusitania
Thrifty newcomer may be just the ticket in profligate Portugal
Pedro Passos Coelho, Portugal’s prime minister-elect, does not like wasting money. Both in his professional career and personal life, he has been described as thrifty, frugal, even tight-fisted. He currently lives in a standard apartment block in the none-too-fashionable Lisbon district of Amadora, but if he moves into the prime minister’s residence near the São Bento Palace his stinginess may come in handy in solving Portugal’s debt and deficit crisis. That, at least, appears to be what many Portuguese were thinking when they handed victory to Passos Coelho’s centre-right Social Democrats (PSD) in last Sunday’s general election, coupled with a desire to get rid of the Socialist … [Read more...] about Thrifty newcomer may be just the ticket in profligate Portugal
Portugal gets bailout as Sócrates eyes reelection
Since his government collapsed, Sócrates has worked hard as acting prime minister to secure a now-essential bailout package with the European Union and International Monetary Fund to patch up Portugal’s debts and correct budget deficits that have crippled the country’s ability to borrow on international debt markets. This week, he achieved his objective: agreeing to a bailout with austerity measures very similar to those that opposition parties shot down in the parliament in March. “The government has today reached an agreement with the international institutions regarding the financial aid to our country,” Sócrates said in a televised address on Tuesday. “Naturally, there are no … [Read more...] about Portugal gets bailout as Sócrates eyes reelection
A bitter celebration as Portugal remembers the Carnation Revolution
Thirty-seven years ago today, a swell of disenchantment with the Portuguese government of Marcello Caetano, a continuation of the regime of long-time dictator António Salazar, prompted a group of army officers to lead a coup. Word spread, resistance was virtually non-existent and in the space of a few non-violent hours, the regime was on the verge of being ousted. The putsch culminated in a strange scenario in which Caetano locked himself inside the National Republican Guard building in Lisbon’s Carmo Square as a massive crowd – including armed soldiers and curious men, women and children from the neighbourhood – gathered to watch. After several hours, Caetano gave in and signed a … [Read more...] about A bitter celebration as Portugal remembers the Carnation Revolution