Mourning the happiness of the Portuguese people

2012. 1st Edition.

A self-help book for difficult times.

“Love makes us special; everyday life brutally reminds us of our mediocrity.”

Ironic, of course, and true (that too is well known). Amidst the games of affection and disaffection, of conventional marriage and the gentle madness of this stunned seaside people, Rui Zink is seriously fighting against the death of our ability to think about ourselves and to laugh at ourselves and our little lives.

Here is a book that brings together short texts, some of the most emblematic he has written, and always, always alongside the people:

“Portugal is decidedly ill-suited to the sweet life. The siesta, the weekend, holidays are merely the expression of a truth that should be obvious: we were not born to work, we were born to live. To live well, if possible. In original democracy, the Greek one, there were two groups: citizens and slaves. Happiness begins when a person has their ideas clear: and, frankly, is it not better to be a philosopher than a slave?”

Rui Zink, born in Lisbon in 1961, is one of the most singular voices in contemporary Portuguese literature. Writer, teacher, and intellectual provocateur, he has built a body of work marked by irony, social criticism, and the rare ability to transform the everyday into revealing absurdity.

In books such as O Destino Turístico, A Instalação do medo, or Hotel Lusitano, he explores the tension between fantasy and reality: humor as a sharp form of thought.