The 100 Best Columns
Miguel Esteves Cardoso has published more than 13,000 chronicles. These are some of those that have been photocopied and pasted into notebooks or wardrobes more than any others, the ones that have prompted the most phone calls, arguments, romances and even marriages, the ones that have been sent by email and shared on social media time and again, because they have made us laugh or cry—because, in reading them, we have felt, as only MEC can make us feel, that “this is exactly it.”
For four decades, MEC has been writing about himself and about all of us, about what Portugal is or could be, putting to paper both what would never occur to us and what we feel but would be unable to express as well as he does, our finest chronicler and the country’s first influencer, even before the term “influencer” was ever used.
On these pages are our feelings, from anguish to love, from astonishment to nostalgia; there is a universe of its own, full of ideas, enthusiasms, certainties, anxieties, ambiguities and even contradictions (in the end, a universe like each one of ours), but there is also, and above all, the talent, intelligence and humour of one of the greatest writers the Portuguese language has ever known.
Carlos Maria Bobone, Observador
Miguel Esteves Cardoso (b. 1955) is a writer, chronicler and an influential figure in contemporary Portuguese culture. With a background in economics and a long career in journalism and communications, he became known for his singular voice, capable of combining humour, lucidity and a precise observation of everyday life. His work—which includes books such as A Causa das Coisas, Os Meus Problemas and O Amor é Fodido— has evolved over the decades into a more intimate and refined style of writing, in which reflection on love and time takes centre stage.
