Mother's name

Mother's Name brings together, in a single volume, some of the most expressive writers of Portuguese-language fiction: a book that embraces and expands upon the multiplicity of roles the maternal figure has always played, whether in the public sphere for those around her, or in the intimate lives and imaginations of her children.

Here we find a mother who gives birth among strangers and does not recognize her baby; a mother caught in the crossfire of armed conflict; a self-sacrificing mother who one day unexpectedly finds sexual liberation; a mother who lives through illness with her child at her bedside; a mother whose tongue is loosened and memory clouded by dementia; a dying mother who prompts a retrospective reflection on life; an Old Mother-Grandmother who, in a dreamlike setting, tries to make sense of existence; a mother who is only found by her son after she dies and who begins to accompany him as a ghost; a mama-san who prepares the girls of her brothel for the outside world; a mother who lives in terror that her son will die, and therefore performs suffocating rituals.

Oscillating between the moving, the memorial, the philosophical, and the humorous, these stories give a different name to each of the mothers they portray, thus revealing the unique fingerprint of their authors.

Authors:

Afonso Reis Cabral, Hugo Gonçalves, Jacinto Lucas Pires, João Tordo, Kalaf Epalanga, Mário de Carvalho, Miguel Araújo, Ondjaki, Ricardo Adolfo, Valério Romão