I had almost forgotten how pleasurable it was to read books written by the Cape Verdian author Germano de Almeida. If many of his previous novels, all of which I have read, were based on "second-hand" experiences Back to Paradise is a trip back to his childhood and adolescence in Boavista island and the myriad of traditions that are no longer part of people's daily lives or if they are they certainly have a different "face".
Though I haven't lived in Cape Verde during the same epoch of many of the characters in the novel I came across some of the many traditions thoroughly described in it, particularly when in the eighties I ventured into some remote areas of the various Cape Verdian islands and mixed with the local people, thus getting a different touch of things ... those I had got to know by reading some of the few available Cape Verdian authors in the Portuguese bookshops.
I ended up reading Back to Paradise in two days as I struggled to make it last but prior to my drama I lent it to Sónia who read it in one evening as we were waiting to board the flight back to Lisbon (not exactly back to Paradise) and throughout the actual flight which lasted four hours ... so if this doesn't say anything about the interest conveyed by the book, then there isn't much more I can say ...
No comments:
Post a Comment