FICHEIROS SECRETOS
Luís Osório
The most recent work by Luís Osório is a manual of (in)confidences from a person who has lived close to some of the most eminent figures in Portuguese public life. Over the course of three decades, the journalist and writer – who edited A Capital and Rádio Clube Português, among other media outlets – went about recording stories and episodes that have hitherto remained under the veil of secrecy. These records are now becoming public, taking advantage of the temporal distancing of the events in a work that helps us to understand the country through the personalities of those who had greatest impact in recent decades.
Through this book, we may better grasp the relationship prior to the 25 April revolution that united Cunhal and Soares. The proverbial coldness of Cavaco. But also the merely picaresque scenarios such as the hen given to Sampaio or Catroga ordering the seizure of a club’s bathroom. Furthermore, there are revelations of a psychoanalytic nature, such as the premature demise of Saramago’s only brother. Fragments of history in the return of Luís Osório to non-fiction.
DA MUTAMBA AO ROSSIO
Luís Fernando
A renowned Angolan journalist and writer, Luís Fernando has been, since a very young age, on some of the leading news desks of his country, such as Jornal de Angola or O PAÍS newspapers, having edited both titles. Having experience of diverse media outlets, the step into non-journalism emerged naturally. His first book dates from 1999 (Noventa Palavras) and he has signed off on a range of different works over the course of over two decades of literary activities with Da Matumba ao Rossio his most recently published book. This work takes the connection between Angola and Portugal as its references and presents itself as a set of “chronicles for those from here and for those from there”.
As Alice Donat Trindade states in the preface, the writing of Luís Fernando values “what was only far distant, exotic or even considered peripheral”. From Angola, there come accounts of experiences lives, relationships and landscapes so easy to encounter in the country. In turn, in Rossio, Lisbon, the image emerges of a bucolic cosmopolitanism in which all the city stops to see the same thing.
LITERATURA E CULTURA EM TEMPOS DE PANDEMIA
UCCLA
Published by the UCCLA – the Union of Portuguese Language Capital Cities at the beginning of this year, “Literatura e Cultura em Tempos de Pandemia” is the contribute of this intermunicipal organisation to reflect on the impact that Covid-19 represented on the culture of the Portuguese language community, especially in terms of literary creativity.
Challenged by the UCCLA to participate in this compilation are renowned figures from the arts and letters, including Manuel Alegre, Mia Couto, José Luís Mendonça and Germano de Almeida alongside other rising authors in a set of essays, short stories and poetry expressing the diversity of the Lusophone culture and the different perspectives of each territory – including Galiza, Olivença, Macau and Goa – staging the drama of the pandemic. In addition to the literary works, the work also includes a presentation by the UCCLA Secretary-General, Vítor Ramalho, and a research text and the historical context of pandemics worldwide by the historian Rui Lourido. The compilation is available in bookstores, distributed by Guerra e Paz.
SUSTAINABLE SUCCESS – THE FUTURE OF TECHNOLOGY, LEADERSHIP AND CULTURE
VdA – Paula Gomes Freire
Paula Gomes Freire, group executive partner and a future managing partner at VdA, a law firm, is the author of “Sustainable success – The future of technology, leadership and culture”. A multidisciplinary approach to questions surrounding the sustainability of organisations, their respective leaderships and the challenges that the future holds for them.
The author brings together contributions from different areas such as law, technology, the life sciences and financing for a broad reaching reflection on the transformations taking place in companies and other organisations with the increasingly accelerated and disruptive technological transition that radically alters the management paradigm. Figures such as Carlos Moedas (European Commission / Lisbon Council President) Manuela Veloso (J.P. Morgan), Annette Kroeber-Riel (Google Europe), John Collins (Banco Santander UK) feed this discussion and the fundamental ideas presented in this book which is available free of any charge to download from the VdA website (www.vda.pt).