The Center for Portuguese Studies and Culture/Tagus Press at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth announces the launching of Bellis Azorica–an unprecedented book series dedicated exclusively to the literature, culture and history of the Azores—with the publications of its first two titles.
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The Center for Portuguese Studies and Culture/Tagus Press at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth announces the launching of Bellis Azorica–an unprecedented book series dedicated exclusively to the literature, culture and history of the Azores—with the publications of its first two titles. The series focuses on publishing new translations and reissuing out of print translations of classic works of literature, poetry, and essay. The series likewise commissions original works of scholarship and advances research in a number of fields.
The inaugural volume of the series is the completely revised translation by Francisco Cota Fagundes of the classic novel of the Azores: Stormy Isles: An Azorean Tale by Vitorino Nemésio.
Stormy Isles, originally published in Portuguese in 1944 and set in the Azores between 1917 and 1919, focuses on the vivacious and sharp Margarida, who, at twenty years of age, is a model of feminist aspirations, and the paragon of her generation. A member of the elite, she foregoes some of the entitlements of her class and struggles with the morals of the bourgeois society in which her life unfolds. Narrated in realist and poetic language as a series of interconnected tales within a larger tale, Stormy Isles provides a vivid portrait of the Azores in the early twentieth century.
Vitorino Nemésio (1901–1978) was a novelist, short story writer, poet, intellectual, journalist, and radio and television personality. Known as a conversationalist, he is considered one of the most significant Portuguese writers of the twentieth century. Francisco Cota Fagundes is professor emeritus of Portuguese in the Department of Languages, Literatures & Cultures at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
Co-publication with Gávea-Brown Publications of the Department of Portuguese and Brazilian Studies at Brown University
To purchase Stormy Isles, please visit the UMass Press website by clicking HERE.
The second volume of the series is a bilingual edition of Poems in Absentia & Poems fromThe Island and the World by Pedro da Silveira, beautifully rendered into English by George Monteiro.
Born on the island of Flores, between Europe and the United States, Pedro da Silveira captures the islander’s longing to venture out to the West, leading to departure and an inevitable return. These fresh and original poems, now available for the first time in English in this bilingual edition, express a deep connection to place, particularly, the insular world of the mid-Atlantic islands of the Azores. In Poems in Absentia & Poems from The Island and the World, we find yearning, hope, and loss in equal measure. In plain and direct language, we experience dreaming and diminution, as well as the discovery of illusions.
Pedro da Silveira(1922–2003) was a poet, scholar, and translator who worked for decades at the National Library of Portugal. George Monteirois professor emeritus of English and of Portuguese and Brazilian Studies at Brown University. Vamberto Freitas, who contributed a foreword, is lecturer of English at the University of the Azores.
Co-publication with Gávea-Brown Publications of the Department of Portuguese and Brazilian Studies at Brown University
To purchase Poems in Absentia & Poems from The Island and the World, please visit the UMass Press website by clicking HERE.
These first two titles will be printed and distributed in the Azores and mainland Portugal by the Companhia das Ilhas (http://companhiadasilhas.pt).
Bellis Azorica is edited by Prof. Onésimo T. Almeida (Brown University) and Dr. Mario Pereira (Executive Editor, CPSC/TP). The series editorial board consists of Diniz Borges, Maria do Rosário Girão, Urbano Bettencourt, Vamberto Freitas, and Victor Rui Dores.
Tagus Press is the publishing arm of the Center for Portuguese Studies and Culture at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth.