[A first review of Maria Aurora Couto's long awaited book Filomena's Journeys by Selma Carvalho. The book is released this week in Bombay.]
"Chico was born into a patrician world of great privilege, the product of Portuguese Republicanism which fostered intellectual pursuits among Goa’s social elite but manacled them with colonial restraints. A world controlled and dominated by an oligarchy of a few chosen Catholic families; the old guard of the Velha Conquistas. Some of them might have been discreetly impoverished, although their material impoverishment lay disguised within the many folds of aristocratic frolic, and whatever revenue yielded from the land. Behind the façade, lay the ennui of a society caught up in its own conservatism, doing an inner battle with liberal minds who sought release from its fetters. How could anyone channel their aspirations in a land controlled by censure, both political and social? There were no great revolutionary causes to defend or polemics to be challenged. There was only the undue emphasis on proper comportment, on family honour, on duty and obligation and the endless tyranny of everyday complacency which ultimately led to a fracturing of the Self." http://www.epaperoheraldo.in/Details.aspx?id=12251&boxid=459 43437&uid&dat=11%2F17%2F2013 Best wishes, Selma -- Augusto Pinto 40, Novo Portugal Moira, Bardez Goa, India E pinto...@gmail.com P 0832-2470336 M 9881126350
