Blog
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Interview in Portuguese-American Review
original interview in Portuguese-American Review Portuguese-American Review – Congratulations on publishing “Beyond Bullfights and Ice Hockey: Essays on Language, Identity and Writing Culture”. What is this book’s genre or category? paulo da costa – The book can be seen as a creative non-fiction collection of texts that stretches its traditional essay-like boundaries past the more journalistic or academic essay by its irreverence, humour and often its embrace of a poetic tone to deliver thought through the vein of beauty. I hope it will be seen as a garden of beautiful words with philosophical substance. A poet at heart can never abstain from wrapping his thoughts in beauty. An edible…
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Obligatory reading for the North American Luso Diaspora – impressions by Diniz Borges
Diniz Borges on Beyond Bullfights & Ice Hockey (essays) Just began to read this new book of essays by paulo da costa. The first essay is amazing. Paulo is a great writer. The title of the book is great. Indeed, beyond some of these stereotypical cliches that we slap in the Portuguese experience in North-America. Paulo writes from a Portuguese-Canadian experience, not very different from ours here in the US. I will continue reading this great book of essays and it will be, I’m sure, one of future articles for the Portuguese language press in the US and in the Azores. Congrats to Boavista Press for the publication. Acabo de…
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New book: Beyond Bullfights and Ice Hockey
Beyond Bullfights and Ice Hockey Essays on Identity, Language and Writing Culture A book of twelve essays, musings, thoughts, inner conversations, arguments and rambles written over the course of two decades. For those who believe the book is obsolete and has been overtaken by other cultural platforms and technologies in our increasingly fast-moving times, I remind myself that the book is a marker of sanity for the human spirit. It will always be a measure of how far we humans have fallen off our cultural and spiritual balance. The book is an intimate match to the rhythm of our consciousness, our state of being present in the world, our hunger…
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New Fiction in Prairie Fire Magazine
paulo da costa’s fiction in Prairie Fire‘s spring 2015 issue! The Spring 2015 Volume 36, No.1 issue features fiction by Catherine Brunet, paulo da costa, Alex Leslie and Leanne Lieberman; poetry by Byrna Barclay, Matthew Gwathmey, Bill Howell, Sally Ito, Andrew Kozma, Armand Garnet Ruffo, Douglas Burnet Smith, Stephanie Warner and Daryl Whetter; and non-fiction by Souvankham Thammavongsa. Table of Contents Alex Leslie The Sandwich Artist Laurie D. Graham Two Poems Stephanie Warner Domesticity Leanne Lieberman Mr. Donuts Byrna Barclay Two Poems Armand Garnet Ruffo The Artist and His Four Wives, 1975 Paulo Da Costa A Catalogue of Devotions Matthew Gwathmey from Appalachian Ecologues Catherine Brunet Aramis in Leningrad Douglas…
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New Fiction in Grain Magazine
Issue 42.1 of Grain Magazine – Hearing Voices – is out now, featuring artwork by Wilf Perreault, and new work by Gary Geddes, Paul Cresey, Robert Currie, paulo da costa (fiction), among many others authors.
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Mara Bettencourt sings poem by paulo da costa
Mara Bettencourt, Boston, has put to music one of my English poems from The Book of Water. Take a peek at an excerpt from this music video recorded during the 2013 AzoresFringe Festival, in a vineyard with a background view of Pico’s volcano. For more information on this visually gorgeous documentary please go to: Mirateca Documentaries
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Malahat Review – Seamless Stories Haunt
The January 2014 issue (#185) of the University of Victoria’s Malahat Review features a review of The Green and Purple Skin of the World. Fiction Review by Norma Lundberg The Green and Purple Skin of the World: Stories by paulo da costa (Freehand, 2013). Paperbound, 208 pp., $21.95 The sixteen stories in this collection proceed so seamlessly a reader might initially suspect them of being slight—a smooth skin of words, a faint echo from the title. But just as our skin is only the surface of our complex bodies, these stories are alive with characters in their own complicated worlds. They slowly enter the reader and haunt…
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Memória: An Anthology of Portuguese Canadian Writers
This first anthology of Portuguese Canadian writers serves as a superb introduction which cogently illustrates the emerging presence of Portuguese literary voices within the Canadian landscape. Embedded in its cultural meaning system, it provides a background upon which the scope of the texts can be located. In fact, the poetic and narrative texts, central to the fabric woven throughout this volume, involve not only the exploration of narrative memory and identity, but also paint a vibrant picture of the Portuguese diasporic world in which these writers live. Congratulations to editor Fernanda Viveiros for the initiative, and for presenting us with this rich and sophisticated selection. I am confident that the…
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The Midwife of Torment
(…) Felismina, the town curandeira, a woman accustomed to probing the depths of the psyche, a midwife of torment, heard about Florindo’s condition. She believed him. “If the boy says he stinks, he stinks. Who are we? Do we wear his skin, smell his nightmares?” Florindo Ramos sought her intercession in the matter. After consulting her wrinkled manuals, brushing the dust off her skirt, Felismina declared, “I dug up one antidote, boy. Only one. But, for it to work you must be willing to look the nightmare in the face.” Florindo shuddered, scrubbed his face with the handkerchief in his hand. “Unless you want to live with things as…
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Pleasant Troubles
A sudden, involuntary flaring of his tongue, a hideous contortion of his face; and apart from this peculiar affliction, Bonifácio Careta remained an ordinary child. The villagers believed everyone entered life with unique, God-given graces—some born to nose-picking, others to continuous spitting, others to limping. They never spent a second thought on Bonifácio. Bonifácio Careta’s life would have proceeded without remarkable attention if misfortune had not brought his peculiar condition to public notice. Bonifácio’s fortunes changed irrevocably on the occasion of the long-awaited Papal tour of the country with the Pontiff’s brief, unscheduled bathroom stop in Bonifácio’s forgotten village. While the Pontiff bestowed upon the gathering crowd his holy blessing,…
