Today I had literature class and now we arent focusing entirely in learning about the great writers of our country and their whole bibliographies but instead we are learning about smaller writers and only one or two of their books.
We started with this writer called Manuel da Fonseca, our textbook had an image of him and he looked like a random old man from the Alentejo (a portuguese rural region known by its poverty and isolation) with his beret and coat, the question I had was “is this man even able to read?”
But during our 10 minute break I searched for him in Wikipedia and this man is not what you think: he was a neo-realism writer, studied in one of Lisbon’s most important schools and the secondary school at his birthplace is named after him!
The story I read was named *Sempre é uma companhia* which translates to *It’s always a company*
When I started reading it I thought it was a story about the life in the Alentejo and as someone who lives in a city I didnt see any interest in this story at first.
But I was wrong, the story has all kinds of crazy plot-twists and mentions themes like marriage problems, loneliness, alcoholism, suicide and depression.
The author’s intention was to talk about isolation in rural areas (something that is common in Portugal) and ended up writing a short but excellent novel.
I believe this story was interesting and worth reading, because it has some crazy plotwists and talks about themes that affect our daily lives, Portugal was always a country of isolation and this talks about it in a way that we can understand.
The writer also has many books, the majority of them about his region and the way of life in the 20th century, he has another book named *Seara de Vento* about the opression of the rich families against the poor farmers.
He is definitely a hero in Alentejo, the region he always loved.
by CRNXD38