Poetry
Mar Meu
Not translated into English
Xanana Gusmão · 1998
Synopsis
The collection brings together nine poems written during the author's detention and reproductions of his prison paintings. The first opens with “Estou em guerra / o céu não é meu” and returns to the refrain “O meu mar!”: the sea becomes the sign of a land lost and invaded. Other poems, such as “Gerações” or “20 de Novembro de 1992”, denounce torture and the violence of the occupation and call for the struggle to continue, while “Paz, 'Ngola!” salutes Angola's fight for its independence.
Context
Published in Porto in 1998 by Granito, in a Portuguese and English edition, the book bears a preface by Mia Couto, for whom the Timorese are not alone and are therefore not condemned to silence, and who reads in it the epic of a people. A 2003 reissue, with the Instituto Camões, added a Tetum translation by Luís Costa. Suillan Miguez Gonzalez sees in it a central voice of the international campaign for the liberation of Timor, and Fabio Mario da Silva compares its sea with that of the poet Fernando Sylvan.
Who it is for
For reading the Timorese resistance from the inside, in the verse written in prison by its principal leader.
Prizes and reception
In his preface, the Mozambican novelist Mia Couto writes that “by the hand of one man, Timor is written”.
Sources for this page 6
The pages consulted to check this page.