Goan writing in Portuguese gets another close look, back home

GOA, India: Five decades after the Portuguese language

suddenly lost its prominence in this society, a

researcher-priest is to come out with a detailed study of the

literature that influenced the minds and hearts of 19th and

20th century Goa.

Dr. (Fr) Eufemiano de Jesus Miranda is to release a

new book titled Oriente e Ocidente na Literatura

Goesa (East and West in Goan Literature). The

322-page book’s subtitle focuses on the “reality,

fiction, history and imagination” of the writings

from Goa’s past. It will be released on Wednesday,

May 30, 2012 at the Margao Ravindra Bhavan’s Black

Box at a function which starts at 4.45 pm.

This work looks at the work of many prominent writers of the

yesteryears — Francisco Luis Gomes, Orlando da Costa, and

themes such as the image of Mother India in the poetry of the

Portuguese-speaking Goan, the figure of the dancing-girl in

Goan Lusophone literature, and the works of “Gip” and

Augustinho Fernandes.

Dr Miranda also looks at the creative output of other Goans

writing in Portuguese — Floriano Barreto, Nascimento

Mendonca, Mariano Gracias, Adolfo Costa, Paulino Dias,

Adeodato Barreto, Sanches Fernandes, Lino Abreu, Vimala Devi,

Laxmanrao Sardessai and R.V. Pandit.

Eufemiano de Jesus Miranda earlier did his PhD at the Goa

University on the topic 19th-20th century Indo-Portuguese

Literature — a study of major themes in the socio-historical

background (Literatura Indo-Portuguesa dos Séculos XIX e XX:

Um estudo de temas principais no contexto sócio-histórico).

Miranda has also been at St Xavier’s College at

Mapusa, Goa, for ten years as a lecturer teaching

both Portuguese and English. In 1988, he was

awarded a scholarship from the Gulbenkian

Foundation, Lisbon, to work on the thesis which was

completed under the guidance of the late

vice-principal Fr. Ivo de Mascarenhas, at the Goa

University.

He has continued to teach at various institutes and colleges,

and as a priest involved actively in the pastoral ministry at

Curca-Santana, Alto de Porvorim, Santa Inez and presently at

Chicalim. Miranda is currently the parish priest of the

Chicalim Church.

Miranda has a classical formation from the seminary from 1954

to 1960, having learnt Latin, Greek, Hebrew, French, Marathi

and Konkani. His other passion is music, and he founded the

Music Lovers’ Society and the Goa String Orchestra, and he is

also president of the Stuti Choral Ensemble, Goa.

Stuti is the Konkani word for “praise”, and he is actively

involved in organising concerts in various in religious and

other venues with the goal of fostering the culture of

classical and popular music and taking it to the people.

In his book, Miranda suggests: “The Indo-Portuguese

writer is a ‘romantic’, a man under the spell of a

‘rupture’ and a ‘longing for totality’. It argues

that this writer — ethnically Indian but often

imbibed with Western, Christian and Latin traits,

and also strongly influenced by the

“Vedic-Upanishadic Hindu substratum”, was marked by

a painful search for “self-identity and

self-definition”.

Though the book is in Portuguese — one of the few to be

published in recent decades in that language in Goa — it has

chapter summaries in the English language.

The book has been supported in part by the Goa

government’s Directorate of Arts & Culture, and its launch is

being held in association with the Ravindra Bhavan, Margao.

Its introduction is by Prof. Dr. Hélder Garmes of the

Department of Classical and Vernacular Literature of the

University of Sao Paulo in Brazil.

A few Brazilian students are known to have done or are still

doing their research on topics relating to Goan writing in

Portuguese, a genre seemingly forgotten in its home of origin

itself.

Angela Goldstein has been studing the writing

(short stories) by Vimala Devi for her Masters.

Pedro Vinícius Leite has been doing a comparative

study between *O signo da Ira* and *O ultimo olhar

de Manu Mirando*, two novels by the awardwinning

Portugal-based late Orlando da Costa who traces his

roots to Margao.

Octavio Carillo has been working on a comparative study

between *O Signo da Ira* and Lambert Mascarenhas’

*Sorrowing Lies My Land* at the undergraduate level. João

Cunha who already did a study termed as impressive on *Jacob

and Dulce* by “Gip”, for his Master, now, in his PHd, is

studing the works by Jose da Silva Coelho. Prof Helder

himself has been doing a comparative study between *Os

Brahamanes* (1866), the novel by Francisco Luis Gomes, and

*The Guarani* (1857), a romantic Brazilian novel by Jose de

Alencar.

Dr Miranda’s book has been published by the Saligao-based

Goa,1556 named after the arrival of the first Gutenberg-style

printing press in the whole of Asia, in Goa in that year. It

is available via mail order from goa1556@gmail.com

The launch function is open to interested members of the

public.

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Contact numbers:

Author (Dr/Fr Eufemiano Miranda) +91-832-2540099 (Portugues or English)

PUblisher (Goa,1556) goa1556@gmail.com +91-832-2409490 or +91-832-2409490 (English only) Contact: Frederick Noronha.