Jorge Reis-Sá Portugal

© PAT

Jorge Reis-Sá was born in Portugal in 1977. He attended university courses in astronomy and biology, but interrupted his academic education to devote himself to literature as a writer and publisher. He is editorial director of the publishing house Quasi Edições. Reis-Sá has published seven books of poetry and several books of short stories, one of which won the 2004 Bocage Prize.

In his first novel Todos os dias (“Day after Day”), Jorge Reis-Sá drafts a portrait of a family that appears average. In the description of a normal day, the thoughts of the brother Fernando, the father Antônio and the mother Justina constantly revolve around a dead young man, Augusto, and the loss they have suffered. Reis-Sá masterfully constructs a precise web of relationships in a short space. Through the characters’ voices, it becomes clear that there is a secret that threatens to eat away at the family from within.

While Justina keeps herself busy running the household, her husband Antônio spends his days facing the graveyard opposite, where his mother Cidinha and his son Augusto are buried. None of them takes the decisive step to talk to the other. The younger son Fernando, at the same time plagued by his conscience, is silently bearing a never-ending grudge against Augusto, whose death he had always longed for. In a constant inner dialogue he bombards him with accusations that his overbearing shadow prevented his own development and that he was always loved by everybody, regardless of how selfishly he behaved. From the father’s monologues, however, the reader finds out that it was not that easy. Over the thoughts of Justina, Antônio and Fernando floats the voice of Antônio’s mother Cidinha. She dies shortly after her grandson’s death and now watches over the family from the other side, following their thoughts and feelings. She and Fernando alone know the unspoken secret: Rafael is really Augusto’s son. In a poem written by Augusto for Fernando and a letter to Rafael, which closes the novel, he reveals the secret to the reader.

Todos os dias is underlain with a melancholy and contemplative tone, allowing the different voices to flow together to form a homogenous form of speech that marks out the novel as a very special piece of work. Reis-Sá melds a wealth of poetic images and descriptions of feelings into a single whole. In a very short space, this novel succeeds in doing what only great literature can.

Jorge Reis-Sá’s talent turns the ordinary upside down in its portrayal. [...] The book is written in the spirit of disenchantment, but that is precisely what enchants us, the readers.

Visão

As in works of poetry, with which this text has countless interesting affinities, both in terms of its discursive structure and in the depth of conviction in the countless images and sensations in its short pieces of text, Todos os Dias is staggering in the elegance and purity of its writing.

Jornal de Letras

The novel O Dom ( “The gift”) works as a social mirror. Through the eyes of twenty characters it brings us the resolution of a highly improbable circumstance: all the people are turning into black, shiny marbles except for the one hundred and fifty persons who happened to be shut in a shopping centre. If they were to go out, it would happen to them too. Only one person – the man with the gift – can move to the outside and back in. Every time he brings with him black marbles and sometimes hope, sometimes misfortune. What will happen? Who is the man with the gift?

O Dom is a masterpiece of literature because of its acute social metaphorism and the extraordinary writing skill of this young author.

Original editions (selection) and rights sold:

Novels:

Todos os dias, Lisbon: Dom Quixote 2005, 186 p.

(English sample and Romanian translation available)

Brazil: Editora Record 2007

O Dom, Vila Nova de Famalicão: Editorial Magnólia 2007, 164 p.

(English sample translation available)

Brazil: Editora Record 2009

Stories:

Terra, Lisbon: Sextante Editora 2007, 91 p.

Poetry:

Biologia do Homem, Vila Nova de Famalicão: Quasi Edições 2004

Brazil: Escrituras 2005 ● Italy: NonSoloParole 2006

Livro de Estimação, Vila Nova de Famalicão: Quasi Edições 2005

Poema ao Filho, Vila Nova de Famalicão: Quasi Edições 2007

Vou Para Casa, Vila Nova de Famalicão: Quasi Edições 2008

Anthology:

Dicionário Amoroso da Língua Portuguesa, Lisbon: Casa da Palvra 2009, 134 p.

(Ed. by Marcelo Moutinho e Jorge Reis-Sá)