Chronicle
Retalhos da Vida de um Médico
Not translated into English
Fernando Namora · 1949
Synopsis
A young doctor, newly qualified, settles in the villages of the mountains, then in the South, in the Alentejo. He notes what he sees, in fragments: the peasants' mistrust of the man from the city, the houses lost at the end of tracks, the healers and the old remedies consulted before him, hunger, avarice and poverty. He responds to them now with irony, now with doubt or weariness.
Context
The book does not tell a story: it is a series of accounts drawn from the real practice of its author, a doctor at Tinalhas and Monsanto, in Beira Baixa, then at Pavia, in Alentejo. It appeared in 1949 and was followed by a second series in 1963. A French translation, by Jacques Alibert and Alzer Barreto, appeared in the mid-1950s from Nouvelles Éditions Latines, and in 1962 Jorge Brum do Canto made from it a film shown at the Berlin festival.
Who it is for
A series of brief narratives, translated into French. There is no plot to follow: each fragment can be read on its own, and the whole works by accumulation.
Prizes and reception
Among the books of his rural period, through which he established himself as a novelist, the one that brought him an international audience.
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