Poetry
Pão & Fonema
Corsino Fortes · 1974
Synopsis
A long poem in a single piece, in which bread, volcanic stone and the Creole language are taken together as the three materials a people is made of. The text follows a movement of foundation: a land rising from the sea, men who work it, a language forming in their mouths, a country that names itself. Portuguese is crossed with Creole there, and the syntax breaks to let the rhythm through.
Context
The book appeared in 1974, the year the Portuguese revolution opened the way to the independence of the colonies, and the year its author, a magistrate in Angola, was active in the pro-independence party. It was his first book, at forty-one: his poems had circulated since the fifties in school newspapers and then in the magazines of the archipelago, including the last issue of Claridade. Two volumes followed, one in the eighties, the other in 2001, and the three form a trilogy that tells of a people's march towards its freedom.
Who it is for
A long poem in Portuguese mixed with Creole, not translated into French. English, Italian and Dutch versions exist in anthologies.
Prizes and reception
It changed the subject matter of Cape Verdean poetry, which had sung of emigration and, after him, began to speak of the land and the people in an epic mode.