Ten of the Best Novels Set in Portugal By Oliver Balch My initial instinct on moving to Portugal a few years ago was to fill my bookshelf with non-fiction. There lay the path to the country’s history, culture and politics, I figured. And, so it proved. Titles such as Roger Crowley’s excellent Conquerors and Barry Hatton’s eminently readable The Portuguese brought me up to speed with the country’s major milestones and missteps, its key dates and dominions. Yet, only when I picked up my first Fernando Pessoa, my first José Saramago, did I get a flavour of the whims, wants and interior worlds of the Portuguese povo (people). My selection hops between the old and new, the native-born and the outsider-looking-in. It’s by no means exhaustive, yet, as Lord Byron wrote in Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, I hope it serves as a route to “pleasure in the pathless woods” of Portuguese (and Portugal-related) fiction. Baltasar and Blimunda by José Saramago Awarded the Nobel prize in 1998 for his ability to help us “once again apprehend an illusory reality, José Saramago is without question Portugal’s most famous literary export. His 1984 novel, The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis, set in a prewar fascist Lisbon, is widely considered his masterpiece. For a lighter and more uplifting read, however, my pick would be his 1982 historical romp, Baltasar and Blimunda. Framed by the construction of the Convent of Mafra, a modern-day tourist honeypot, it describes a heretical priest trying to escape the clutches of the Inquisition with the aid of a one-handed former soldier (Baltasar) and his X-ray-eyed lover (Blimunda). Hunting Midnight by Richard Zimler Few non-native novelists know Portugal more intimately or write about it more gracefully than the naturalised American Richard Zimler. A follow-up to his acclaimed novel The Last Kabbalist of Lisbon, his 2004 book, Hunting Midnight, explores themes of Jewishness, diversity and prejudice. While the narrative shifts in the second half to the US (in search of Midnight, the disappeared protagonist of the title), the initial descriptions of Porto’s riverine Ribeira neighbourhood at the turn of the 19th century are exquisitely crafted. So exquisite, in fact, that the city has since awarded him its coveted Medal of Honour. 48 Portugal Living Magazine
Alentejo Blue by Monica Ali The second novel is a fantastically tricky accomplishment to pull off and, if the critics are any guide (Goodreads’ gives it an underwhelming 2.7/5), Monica Ali’s Alentejo Blue falls somewhat flat. Sure, it’s not as electric as Brick Lane, but, as an evocation of rural Portugal, it’s definitely worth a read. Set in and around the village of Mamarrosa, this series of gently unfolding vignettes transports readers into the lives–and minds–of a fictional populace: a disgruntled cafe owner, a wannabe au pair, a squalid English family, a gay pig farmer. Ali is always a joy to read. Skin-deep and stylised as it may be (“this neat, pretty book”, novelist Natasha Walter called it), don’t let that put you off. Take Six: Six Portuguese Women Writers by Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen, Agustina Bessa-Luís, Maria Judite de Carvalho, Hélia Correia, Teolinda Gersão and Lídia Jorge Few of Portugal’s female novelists are to be found in English translation, which is as artistically regrettable as it is culturally telling. This collection of masterful short stories represents a notable and important stab at setting the record straight. Varied in style and subject, all the stories share a remarkable verve and freshness. Among the half-dozen writers selected is Agustina Bessa-Luís, who penned the 1954 classic, A Sibila, and whose death last year at the age of 96 provoked a day of official mourning in her adopted city of Porto. Aficionados of feminist literature should also check out New Portuguese Letters, whose erotic and irreverent subject matter saw it banned by the Salazar dictatorship. Night Train to Lisbon by Pascal Mercier Originally published in German, Pascal Mercier’s Night Train to Lisbon is a philosophically intense mystery set in the Portuguese capital during the Estado Novo dictatorship from the early 1930s until 1974, mostly under the rule of António Salazar. The protagonist, a Swiss classicist called Raimund Gregorius (played by Jeremy Irons in the 2013
