Novel
Hora di Bai
Not translated into English
Manuel Ferreira · 1962
Synopsis
1943. The ship Nossa Senhora das Areias leaves the island of São Nicolau for São Vicente, laden with people driven out by drought and hunger. On arrival, in Mindelo, they find that famine reigns there too. Around them are woven the intrigues, loves and small dramas of a town of passage, while a morna of farewells returns, page after page.
Context
The novel deals with the famine that struck Cape Verde in the early 1940s, and critics have seen hunger as its main character. Its author, a Portuguese, had been sent there in 1941 and stayed six years, in the circle of writers who were inventing a literature of the archipelago; he held the morna, the search for food, the circle of the sea and the desire to leave to be the four poles of the Cape Verdean epic. The title, which means the hour of departure, takes up a morna by Eugénio Tavares. Creole is mixed with Portuguese, and the Brazilian edition of 1980 carries a glossary. The book has been translated into French and Italian.
Who it is for
A short novel, translated into French in 1967; Creole surfaces on every page, and an annotated edition helps.
Prizes and reception
Ricardo Malheiros Prize in the year of its publication, and regarded as one of the most important novels of Cape Verdean literature.
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The pages consulted to check this page.