Letters to Vila Berta
For four years, MEC wrote to his friend Carlos Vilela from England almost every day. But Carlos never replied. There were dozens of letters from Miguel to Carlos, who lived in Vila Berta, in Lisbon, and none from Carlos to Miguel, exiled in Manchester. But MEC, then as today, never stopped writing, because he always knew that was his destiny. And much of what he would later be recognized for was already in the letters that make up this book and remained unpublished for almost half a century.
In these pages, which could represent the first volume of Miguel Esteves Cardoso's autobiography, the author confesses the unconfessable, as is only done among friends, beyond exercising the thought, rhetoric and eccentricity that, as we see here, always distinguished him. In Cartas para a Vila Berta are the obsession with frivolity, youthful cruelty towards the misery of others, the taste for being discriminatory, controversial political opinions, from Salazar to Mussolini, the beginning of collaboration with newspapers, an interview with Leonard Cohen, a trip to Scotland, the contempt for almost all Portuguese authors, the terror regarding a possible paternity with an Irish lady, the taste for spending money, for alcohol and amphetamines, the marriage with the mother of his daughters and the birth of an irrepressible passion for Portugal, among many other themes.
Striving to attend classes and fighting to, at 21 years old, organize his complete poetry, the result of the selection of the best poems from eleven books (to date, all unpublished), Cartas para a Vila Berta can also be read as a brilliant coming-of-age novel about a young man's obsession with another. Marked by great formal freedom, and written in the form of a diary, in it we follow the young Miguel Cardoso, his anguish and confessions, as well as an enormous desire for return and revenge.
Miguel Esteves Cardoso (b. 1955) is a writer, columnist and an influential figure in contemporary Portuguese culture. With a background in Economics and a long career in journalism and communication, he became known for his singular voice, capable of uniting humor, 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 - evolved over the decades into a more intimate and refined writing, where reflection on love and time takes a central place.
