News News: Publication of Dark Stones by Dias de Melo

In partnership with the Government of the Azores, Tagus Press, the publishing arm of the Center for Portuguese Studies and Culture at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, announces the publication of Dark Stones by Dias de Melo translated by Gregory McNab and with an introduction by Maria João Dodman.

In partnership with the Government of the Azores, Tagus Press, the publishing arm of the Center for Portuguese Studies and Culture at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, announces the publication of Dark Stones by Dias de Melo translated by Gregory McNab and with an introduction by Maria João Dodman.

Bringing to life his countrymen’s daily struggles with the sea, struggles carried out against the dark-stoned background of their homeland, novelist Dias de Melo tells the collective story of Azorean seamen at a moment of great change around the turn of the twentieth century. Confronted with increasing economic hardship and social and political tensions, whalers faced the choice of continuing to eke out a living at home or forsaking their boats for the shores of America.

This expanded Tagus Press edition features Gregory McNab’s masterful 1988 translation of Dark Stones and a new introduction from Maria João Dodman. As an insider from the island of Pico, Dias de Melo writes in a realistic style that is passionate and forceful, yet tenacious, without ever losing certainty and control. 

DIAS DE MELO (1925–2008) was a prolific writer in several genres whose work focuses on life on the Azores, especially the experiences of whalers from Pico and their dreams, failures, struggles, and solidarity against the forces of nature and social interests within a closed rural-maritime community. Dark Stones (Pedras negras), one of his best-known novels, was first published in Portuguese in 1964.  

MARIA JOÃO DODMAN is associate professor of Portuguese & Luso-Brazilian studies at York University in Toronto.  

GREGORY MCNAB is professor emeritus of Portuguese at the University of Rhode Island.  

Dark Stones was published with the support of the Government of the Azores.  

Dark Stones is volume 7 of the Bellis Azorica Series, edited by Onésimo T. Almeida (Brown University) and Mario Pereira (UMass Dartmouth).  

Dark Stones is a co-publication with Gávea-Brown Publications in the Department of Portuguese and Brazilian Studies at Brown University. 

To purchase Dark Stones, please visit the University of Massachusetts Press website by clicking here.  

For more information, please contact Mario Pereira, Executive Editor, at mpereira6@umassd.edu.