Uma Viagem à Índia

By Goncalo Tavares

2010

First Published

4.15

Average Rating

476

Number of Pages

14H31M

Audio Length

A Voyage to India is the story of Bloom, our hero, as he makes his way from Lisbon to India in a decidedly non-heroic age. Gone are the galleons, gone is god; so too the swords of the swashbuckler and sacerdotal certainty. In such an era, where is wisdom to be found? Bloom ever deliberate, ever longwinded takes his time getting to India, stopping first in London, then Paris and elsewhere in Europe, making friends, encountering enemies, recounting his life story, revealing the reasons for his flight from Lisbon and his vague hopes for and nagging fears about what he might find in India. Or within himself. His is a melancholic itinerary, an attempt to learn and forget. As our narrator flatly declares: Life proceeds and is monstrous. Parodying "The Lusiads," Luis de Camoes s sixteenth-century Portuguese epic of seafaring exploration and naval prowess, Tavares' poem is a solemn requiem of sorts, an investigation into the psyche of humankind in a world where the advance of technology outpaces our ability (or desire) to theorize it, the search for wisdom has been abandoned, and old imperialist dreams have revealed themselves to be a postcolonial nightmare.

Avg Rating

4.15

Number of Ratings

743

5 STARS

46%

4 STARS

33%

3 STARS

14%

2 STARS

1 STARS

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Author

Goncalo Tavares

Author · 34 books

Gonçalo M. Tavares was born in Luanda in 1970 and teaches Theory of Science in Lisbon. Tavares has surprised his readers with the variety of books he has published since 2001. His work is being published in over 30 countries and it has been awarded an impressive amount of national and international literary prizes in a very short time. In 2005 he won the José Saramago Prize for young writers under 35. Jerusalém was also awarded the Prêmio Portugal Telecom de Literatura em Língua Portuguesa 2007 and the LER/Millenium Prize. His novel Aprender a rezar na Era de Técnica has received the prestigious Prize of the Best Foreign Book 2010 in France. This award has so far been given to authors like Salmon Rushdie, Elias Canetti, Robert Musil, Orhan Pamuk, John Updike, Philip Roth, Gabriel García Márquez and Colm Tóibín. Aprender a rezar na Era da Técnica was also shortlisted for the renowned French literary awards Femina Étranger Prize and Médicis Prize and won the Special Price of the Jury of the Grand Prix Littéraire du Web Cultura 2010. In 2011, Tavares received the renowned Grande Prêmio da Associação Portuguesa de Escritores, as well as the prestigious Prémio Literário Fernando Namora 2011. The author was also nominated for the renowned Dutch Europese Literatuurprijs 2013 and was on the Longlist of the Best Translated Book Award Fiction 2013. Gonçalo M. Tavares nasceu em 1970. Os seus livros deram origem, em diferentes países, a peças de teatro, peças radiofónicas, curtas-metragens e objectos de artes plásticas, vídeos de arte, ópera, performances, projectos de arquitectura, teses académicas, etc. Estão em curso cerca de 160 traduções distribuídas por trinta e dois países. Jerusalém foi o romance mais escolhido pelos críticos do Público para «Livro da Década». Em Portugal recebeu vários prémios, entre os quais, o Prémio José Saramago (2005) e o Prémio LER/Millennium BCP (2004), com o romance Jerusalém (Caminho); o Grande Prémio de Conto da Associação Portuguesa de Escritores «Camilo Castelo Branco» (2007) com Água, Cão, Cavalo, Cabeça (Caminho). Recebeu, ainda, diversos prémios internacionais.