Lídia Jorge received the Pessoa Prize, which once again recognized one of the most talented and lucid authors of our time. He debuted in 1980 with the novel The Day of Prodigieswhich Vergílio Ferreira considered to be an announcement that contemporary Portuguese narrative promised to gain new momentum. In fact, I had the pleasure of witnessing, in front of both of them, the genuine admiration of the author of Apparition by the then young author, aware of her cultural and human qualities, knowing well the great demands that characterized the master.
Lídia Jorge’s books are an expression of a time of transition from a closed society and a war towards democracy, with a gradual approach to European modernity. One feels in this work that something gradually changes that no one can remain indifferent to. Cais das Merendas, Silvestre City News or The Whispering Coast are examples of this transition, very safe towards maturity.
“Preserve a memory of the past, and then move towards the future. That is, I wanted to create a kind of time capsule, so that that world would remain there, witnessed, in as vivid a way as possible” (said the writer in dialogue with Carlos Reis). And so, at the beginning, we find the old Algarve, “poor and beautiful, archaic and splendid, and that’s why I made the characters speak with their accent…” However, after the countryside, comes the city and the urban phenomenon. But there is great autonomy in the way of writing, with a concern to follow one’s own path, under multiple influences. It is “a generation whose obvious marks are visible”.
The Passion Valley, The Wind Whistling in the Cranes, The Memorables (here in a rethinking about the Revolution), but still Estuary e Compassion allowed the writer to interpret our society and project herself internationally. It is the human condition that is always at stake, and the world is evolving into a diversity that allows the reader to understand and understand themselves. Hence Lídia Jorge’s definition of herself as a “chronicler of passing time”.
However, it is much more than that. The characters in the novels come and go, quietly, but highlight strong characteristics. Some people even say that they have passed through Vila Maninhos, the unmistakable setting of the first novel. It’s not true. The writer never corrects them, despite this place only existing in the pages of the book. But he thinks it’s beautiful, because fiction is always richer than reality. After all, romances always start from houses, from their balconies and windows, as Luciana Stegagno Picchio once highlighted… That’s where the soul of people and places begins. Look at the themes of finitude and isolation, so present in Lídia’s recent reflections. It is the mystery of human lives that is always at stake. Remember the mind-blowing dialogue with Agustina about Orson Welles or Maria Aliete Galhoz’s “forgetfulness” about rereading Pessoa’s unpublished works.
This Pessoa Prize was awarded at a good time. But there is a reading to be made of Lídia Jorge’s multifaceted work. If there were those who were surprised by the permanent requirement to understand human dignity in its deepest consequences, understanding the relationship with others and with differences as a natural consequence of humanity, the truth is that there is a sentimental contract that continues to animate the writer, in the certainty of the strength of Portugal’s fertile and perennial roots.
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