“Voyage to India” by Gonçalo M. Tavares
Did you know that there is an EU Book Club in Vancouver? They discuss books from a number of European countries and every year they review a book from Portugal. Portuguese literature is rich and deep and goes all the way back to medieval Galician-Portuguese poetry and continued onward into the Renaissance period, which brought us the great epic poet Luís de Camões (1524/1525 – 1580). Ever since then, each century has produced talented writers of the time such as Almeida Garrett (1799-1854),Camilo Ferreira Botelho Castelo-Branco (1825-1890),Antero de Quental (1842-1891), José Maria de Eça de Queirós (1845-1900), Fernando Pessoa (1888-1935), Florbela Espanca (1894-1930), Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen (1919-2004), Agustina Bessa-Luís (1922-), Alexandre Manuel Vahía de Castro O’Neill (1924-1986), José Saramago (1922-2010), Luísa Dacosta (1927-2015), Lídia Jorge (1946-) and many more including the author selected for next month’s EU Book Club.
On June 24th, the EU Book Club will be reviewing Gonçalo M. Tavares’ latest novel, “Voyage to India” (Uma Viagem à Índia). This event is organized by the Consulate General of Portugal in Vancouver and the EUNIC Canada-Vancouver, with the support of the Camões Institute for Cooperation and Language. The next meeting of the EU Book Club will be moderated by Sandy Gualdino. Light refreshments will follow, courtesy of the Consulate General of Portugal and the Consul will be in attendance. The complete event details can be found at the end of this blog post.
I’ve attended the EU Book Club before and thoroughly enjoyed the experience. It is a mixed group of people who love books and literature. The moderator will lead the discussion with thought-provoking questions and commentary. You can get an English version of the book from Amazon or Chapters (Indigo) online. Unfortunately, the Vancouver Public Library doesn’t have any copies.
Voyage to India
A “Voyage to India” is a contemporary epic poem inspired by “The Lusiads”, the verse epic by Luís de Camões a sixteenth-century masterwork that is central to Portuguese literature. It is arranged in short stanzas, or cantos, and recounts the tale of the hero, Bloom, on his journey. It becomes clear early on that the trajectory of this poem is anything but direct, and as Bloom sets off from Lisbon and detours through London, Paris, Vienna, and Prague, we are guided in and out of the protagonist’s thoughts, interspersed with philosophical commentary from the narrator, and around an array of obstacles which Bloom must contend with along the way.
Bloom’s motives for embarking on his journey emerge as the poem unfolds. We are given pieces of the puzzle one by one, at each stage learning something new about our hero’s character, but Tavares withholds just enough to keep us asking questions. A Voyage to India is a thought-provoking and highly original contribution to the Western epic poetry tradition – a work which challenges our ideas about genre.
The Author
Gonçalo M. Tavares is considered one of the most important writers of his generation. Born in 1970 in Angola, he started publishing in 2001 and has since been awarded an impressive number of Portuguese and international literary prizes. The Nobel Laureate José Saramago was an early admirer and once said: “Gonçalo M. Tavares burst onto the Portuguese literary scene armed with an utterly original imagination that broke through all the traditional imaginative boundaries”. His work has been published in more than 40 countries.
Event Details
Saturday, June 24, 2017
Cost: Admission is free, but please register by e-mail: eubookclub@alliancefrancaise.ca
When: 4:00 pm to 6:00 pm on Saturday, June 24th, 2017
Where: Alliance Française – 6161 Cambie Street, Vancouver