Novel
A Sibila
Not translated into English
Agustina Bessa-Luís · 1954
Synopsis
On an estate in northern Portugal, at the end of the nineteenth century, the women run the house while the men dream of elsewhere. Quina, a thin adolescent with no schooling, works in the fields with the day labourers. Her father dies leaving the estate neglected, and she takes charge of it. Through calculation and harshness, she rebuilds the fortune he had squandered, and the region gives her the nickname of a fortune-teller.
Context
The novel was completed on 16 January 1953 and submitted at once, under the pseudonym Stavroguine, to a publisher's novel competition, whose jury comprised Vitorino Nemésio, Branquinho da Fonseca, Álvaro Lins and Tomás de Figueiredo; it won and appeared the following year. Eduardo Lourenço wrote ten years later that it had shifted the centre of the country's literary attention: it arrived when neorealism reigned, and its characters were not reduced to social types. The title is a nickname: Quina has no supernatural power. It has been translated into French, German, Spanish and Romanian.
Who it is for
A dense novel, translated into French. The sentence is long and allusive, the narrative goes back in time without warning, and one must accept losing the thread before finding it again.
Prizes and reception
Awarded the Delfim Guimarães prize in 1953, then the Eça de Queirós prize; the book that established its author, studied ever since in schools and universities.
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