Mini - Comments

These are two books I've read in Portuguese by Portuguese authors. I don't think either is translated but even without specific information in English, I still want t leave a register of having read them.

Ala Feminina by Vanessa Ribeiro Rodrigues is literally translated as Female Ward and is a non fiction book based on a collection of notes the author, a reporter, did on female prisons and who are the women there and what it means for them in all their roles (woman, wife, mother, daughter...) to be away from their families. It was interesting to read this book because the point was never to focus on the women's crime and why they are in jail. Well, we do know why but the ladies whose stories we have are just a little sample, and the prisons the reporter had access to seemed to be destined for crimes that aren't the highest security or however one would call this. Most ladies were doing time for drug trafficking but what really united them all was the dream to leave and go back to their families, to be with those who loved them in spite of what happened. It Obviously, the book not being long, we cannot really "know" the women mentioned, but what they are facing and their thoughts are similar for the most part. It really makes one think....

Grade: 8/10

O Lugar das Arvores Tristes by Lénia Rufino could be literally translated as The Place of the Sad Trees.

It is a small book, the author's debut, and it is an apparent simple story. The setting is Alentejo (one of the regions of Portugal, which happens to be where I live) and the main character is Isabel, who has a quirky personality and weird interest in spending time at the cemetery looking at the graves. One day she notices one that provides very little information and no one seems able to explain how that person died. Upon investigating, she realizes it has to do with her own mother's past... I liked the book until the end because I did recognize a lot from my own family's experience, well, that I have heard family members tell me, since the story of Isabel's mother happens in the early 70s and I wasn't born yet. The author really did a good job when it comes to cultural and historical factoids but the end was abrupt and left too much to the imagination, almost as if this was an unfinished story... this was frustrating after all the hints pointing at a resolution.

Grade: 6/10