Vitorino Nemésio

Vitorino Nemesio was the son of Vitorino Gomes da Silva and Maria da Glória Mendes Pinheiro, and born in Praia da Vitória, on Terceira island, Azores (1901).

His early education did not reflect the academic career that he would have; he encountered many problems as a student and was expelled from secondary school, repeating his fifth year of studies. Of his time in the secondary school in Angra do Heroísmo, Nemésio indicated his fondness for history classes, and attributed this interest to Manuel António Ferreira Deusdado (his history teacher), who introduced him to the social sciences.

At 16 years of age, for the first time, Nemésio travelled to the district capital of Horta, to complete his entry exams for the National School: he was barely able to accomplish a passing mark. He did complete the entry exams in the General Course on July 16, 1918. His stayed in Horta from May to August 1918. On August 13, the newspaper O Telégrafo (although disparagingly referring to Nemésio as a "provincial") published a notice about the young author's first book of poetry, Canto Matinal, which was sent to the editor Manuel Emídio (it would later be published in 1916). While at the school, he contributed to Eco Académico: Semanário dos Alunos do Liceu de Angra and helped to found the magazine Estrela d'Alva: Revista Literária Ilustrada e Noticiosa while completing his studies in Angra.

Although relatively young, Nemesio had already developed republican ideals, having participated in literary, republican, and anarchist-unionist meetings while living in Angra. He was influenced primarily by his friend, Jaime Brasil, five-years his senior (the first intellectual mentor he knew), as well as others, such as the lawyer Luís da Silva Ribeiro and the author-librarian, Gervásio Lima.

In 1918, just before the First World War ended, Horta was a centre of maritime commerce with a vibrant night life. It was an obligatory port-of-call, a place for refurnishing chips and giving time off to the crew. The trans-Atlantic telegraph cable companies had installed themselves in Horta, contributing to a cosmopolitan environment, that much later would inspire his Mau Tempo no Canal, on which he was to begin working after 1939. In 1919, he volunteered for military service in the infantry, enabling him to travel outside the Azores for the first time.[3]

His early literary writings were inspired by the Azores. Afonso Lopes Vireira would later note the presence of "childhood memories, and loves, pains and figures of humility, who in these pages, are alive and obsessed with the sea". Vitorino Nemésio's personal experiences are generally present in his published works, beginning with his volume of stories in Paço do Milhafre (English: Eagle Palace), in 1924. Prefaced by Afonso Lopes Vieira, and later retitled O Mistério do Paço do Milhafre (English: The Mystery of Eagle Palace), the work has been in print since 1949. During his long literary career, the author has never stopped surprising readers. In his novels, for example, he transmitted a sense of originality, in particular, with his descriptions of places and complex characters, in which he was generously human (such as in Varanda de Pilatos, published in 1927, or his volume of novels A Casa Fechada (English: The Closed House), comprising three stories: O Tubarão (English: The Shark), Negócio de Pomba (English: Dove Business) and A Casa Fechada).

Vitorino Nemésio was one of the great writers of contemporary Portuguese literature, receiving in 1965, the Prémio Nacional da Literatura (English: National Literary Prize), as well as the 1974 Montaigne Prize. He was a writer of fiction and poetry, a chronicler, a biographer, a historian of literature, a journalist, a philosopher, a letter writer, a language expert and a television writer. This was ironic in view of his terrible beginnings in the secondary school on Terceira.

Generally regional in his perspectives, his works elaborated on Azorean life, along with sentimental memories of his childhood, revealing a populist preoccupation with simple people who were profoundly human and living through aspects of human suffering. He published biographies, including his doctoral dissertation on Alexandre Herculano, and his biography of Queen Saint Elizabeth of Portugal. He also wrote of his journeys to Brazil, the Azores and Madeira, discussed diverse subjects associated with Portuguese and Brazilian history, including a dissertation on Gil Vicente, and wrote poetry criticism.

Nemésio was also a poet, publish works uninterruptedly from 1916 (Canto Matinal) to 1976 (Era do Átomo Crise do Homem). Óscar Lopes, writing on his poetry, noted two currents of verse in his work Nem toda a Noite a Vida (English: Not All Night Is There Life). The first current is mostly regional; in particular, nostalagia for island life, childhood, adolescences, his father and first forbidden love, which are obvious in O Bicho Harmonioso (English: The Harmonious Beast) and Eu, Comovido a Oeste. In his later works there is a transformation, his themes are more metaphysical and religious in tone; he debated themes of life and death, of being and the search for the meaning of life: purely existentialist philosophy. In addition, the writer cultivates a popular poetry marked by Azorean symbolism, in which he was regularly accused of being a regionalist literary.

• Garcia, J. M. (1978). Vitorino Nemésio, A Obra e O Homem. Arcadia.
• Silva, H. G. (1985). Açorianidade Na prosa de Vitorino Nemésio − Realidade, Poesia e Mito. I. N. C. M., Lisbon.
• Roza, E. F. (2002). Poder, TradiçãO e Utopia: Nemésio e a Autonomia dos Açores. Boletim do Instuto Histórico da Ilha Terceira, Praia da Vitória.
• Vitorino Nemésio and the Azores. Portuguese Literary & Cultural Studies. 2002. ISBN 1-933227-09-5.

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-U13sq5iI0
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EdMINA7O78