A story of a Portuguese immigrant from the Azores islands to the Portuguese Community in St. John’s, Newfoundland and tEdited, pictures added 7/5/2020
A story of a Portuguese immigrant from the Azores islands to the Portuguese Community in St. John’s, Newfoundland and then to Toronto. He was a fisherman and almost drowned.
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It’s actually two stories – one of the father and one of the son. We compare the life of the immigrant father from a dirt-poor rural village where the only escape is to go to sea fishing, and that of the son who grows up in urban Toronto. The father struggles to maintain some of his traditional values; the son struggles to find any values. Both face high expectations of making something of themselves.
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The Portuguese do whatever they have to do to survive: frugal rural life tending crops and animals; fishing for cod in an isolated dory in deadly seas, or being a custodian in urban Toronto. In the old days they shipped out on whaling vessels, which is how they arrived in southern New England.
The writing is excellent (blurb by Colm Tobin) and the book is as much a collection of interrelated short stories as it is a novel. Some Portuguese words are used, understood in context. And a major theme is saudade, a feeling of homesickness for the islands. The author has written three novels and he is probably best known for his most recent one, Kicking the Sky.
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This book is a part of the growing and excellent literature by or about Azoreans in the United States and Canada. Some others are Home is an Island by Alfred Lewis, Saudade by Katherine Vaz, The Undiscovered Island by Darrell Kastin, and Leaving Pico by Frank Gaspar. I wrote a book about Portuguese immigrants in the United States and most in southern New England have come from the Azores. Making History; Creating a Landscape: The Portuguese American Community of Southeastern New England
Photo of Fayal island in the Azores from fgf.uac.pt Little Portugal in Toronto from portugalinews.eu The author in Little Portugal from edmontonjournal.com ...more
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