Fascination

“God prevented the brothers from meeting, lest they should come to love one another.
At times they were close, so close in their racing through the woods that their horses reared up and struck their forehooves into the empty air. And empty air, indeed. For the Lord sent his legions of angels to thin the air with their wings, making the place no man’s land.

At times the deepest darkness fell between them, and yet it was noon. Far off, the Goat-Footed Lady stretched out her black lips and howled. But she could not compete.”

It is hoped that the Camões Prize, awarded to her in 2015, will help draw attention to the work of Hélia Correia, a reclusive author and one of the leading voices in contemporary Portuguese literature.

Hélia Correia (1949) is a contemporary Portuguese writer. She holds a degree in Romance Philology and is a secondary school Portuguese teacher. Despite her love of poetry, she is recognised as a fiction writer and one of the most promising novelists of the 1980s generation in Portugal, although her short stories, novellas and novels are always imbued with poetic language.