Novel
Nome de Guerra
Not translated into English
José de Almada Negreiros · 1938
Synopsis
Luís Antunes, a young provincial from a well-off family, is sent to Lisbon by his uncle, who entrusts him to a friend, Dom Jorge, a brutal man charged with training him for the trials of manhood. On the very first night, the pupil disappoints his mentor, but he discovers Judite, a woman of the night life, and resolves to pursue her. She can see that he is not made for her; he has money, and their story begins.
Context
Written in 1925, the book was not published until 1938. It stands apart from the uproar of its author's early career, who had made his name in 1915 with a manifesto against Júlio Dantas, in response to the latter's attacks on the magazine Orpheu. It is a coming-of-age novel in which the individual struggles against the norms of society, and Eduardo Prado Coelho saw in it the first Portuguese model of a fiction that reflects on itself. The author enters and leaves the narrative, and comments on his characters with irony.
Who it is for
A short novel in Portuguese, translated into French and Dutch; the narrator constantly comments on his characters, and the tone belongs to the avant-gardes.
Prizes and reception
Regarded as the first contemporary Portuguese novel and as one of the fundamental novels of the Portuguese twentieth century; it has no English translation.
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