Thursday, March 9, 2023

Two books by Portuguese authors

Another post with a summary of books I've recently read, by Portuguese authors.

I don't have much to say about the books but since I like to keep a diary of my reads and, sometimes, to check older posts, this makes it all tidier in my head.


O Diabo foi Meu Padeiro by Mário Lúcio Sousa is a fascinating mix of fiction and non fiction about the experiences of several prisoners in the concentration camp in Tarrafal, in the archipelago of Cape Verde. The author was born in the island and has used plenty of registered information and even other books by survivors to create his narrative. 
The style is fluid, told in very short chapters. The notion of the existence of this camp is known but since it's located in a distant place and it was not as exploited as other historical facts in the Portuguese dictatorship, especially in history books, it's also likely many don't know a lot about this theme. 
I was quite impressed by the story and the terrible things prisoners saw and lived there, and although a lot is told in an easy - almost carefree - manner, it's impossible to ignore the seriousness of the content. 
The writing was well done, I was eager to keep reading, and I felt interested in investigating some of the things mentioned, which makes it clearly a winner.
Grade: 8/10


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Porque Sim by Daniel Sampaio is a collection of short entries the author had originally written to be published in a newspaper. He is a psychiatrist and works as a family therapist and many of his comments are focused on the way families behave and the relationship between teenagers and schools/teachers/education system... 
I've read many books by the author and I must say this one didn't impress me that much. I like it better when the author writes broader texts about any subject, more so if he includes real life situations/cases or if he addresses things in a more specific way. 
These texts here aren't bad, but they are obviously vague and don't offer much, especially the ones where he criticizes something. To be fair, this feels like a book for the reader to reflect on his words but I honestly think a book for that alone wasn't necessary....

Grade: 5/10

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