Poetry
Bury My Heart on Mount Ramelau
Enterrem meu coração no Ramelau
Anonymous · 1982
Synopsis
The anthology brings together traditional Timorese poems translated into Portuguese and the poems of eight Portuguese-language writers, among them Fernando Sylvan and Xanana Gusmão; the ten poems by Jorge Lauten close the volume. Dominated by the idea of resistance to the invader, the texts speak of the Indonesian invasion, of exile and of Mount Ramelau, the sacred summit of the island. An unsigned preface recalls the lianain, orators who handed down the great deeds of the ancestors to the generations.
Context
Published in Luanda in 1982 by the Union of Angolan Writers, the anthology presented itself as a real sample of Timorese poetry in Portuguese; it covers only part of it, Tetum being absent, and is regarded as a poetry of struggle. According to the review Elyra, the collecting of the texts is owed to Amável Fernandes. Ana Margarida Ramos judges that the metaphor-laden poetry of Jorge Lauten, whose identity remains unknown, best transcends the constraints of the context. The book is hard to find today.
Who it is for
For discovering the Timorese poets who wrote in Portuguese against the occupation, alongside traditional poems of the island.
Prizes and reception
Anthony Soares reads in it, from the preface onwards, the assertion of an unbroken tradition of resistance.
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The pages consulted to check this page.