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Filipa Melo Portugal
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Filipa Melo was born in Angola in 1972 and studied
Communications Science in Lisbon. She has been working as a journalist since
1992, and has already received numerous awards. Este é o meu corpo (“This is my Body”) is her first novel. It was
originally intended as a journalistic work about pathology, anatomy and
forensic medicine.
One night in a provincial
town the corpse of a young woman is found which is completely disfigured. The
investigation on the murder of the young woman, who can later be identified,
is, however, not the main theme of this unusual and disturbing novel. Her name
is Eduarda. Around her four male figures revolve, all with a different
relationship to her. So gradually an image of her forms, which is puzzle-like:
the father, unable to show her his love, her lover, from whom she had a child
and who finally murders her, her colleague at work who is secretly in love with
her, and the forensic medical specialist who carries out the autopsy on the
corpse. In the course of his work, which he masters to perfection, this man
enters into a dialogue with death and tries to draw the last hidden secrets
from the corpse. His actions have something religious about them.
An autopsy is like a birth.
It cannot be repeated. What remains is the memory of Eduarda, a memory
which, more so than life, is the opposite of death. This novel exerts a strange
fascination on the reader, and has been justifiably lauded by the critics.
Original
edition and rights sold:
Este é o meu
corpo, Lisbon: Temas &
Debates 2001, 151 p.
Brazil: Planeta 2004 ● Croatia: Stajer-Graf ● France: Actes Sud 2004 ● Italy:Ponte alle Grazie (Longanesi) 2003 ● Serbia:
Profil ● Slovenia: Goga 2010 ● Spain: Seix Barral 2004