What do you think?
Rate this book
CONTES ET NOUVEAUX CONTES DE LA MONTAGNE
Novos Contos da MontanhaMiguel Torga«Na tua ideia, o que escrevo, como por exemplo estas histórias, é para te regalar e, se possível for, comover. Mas quero que saibas que ousei partir desse regalo e dessa comoção para te responsabilizar na salvação da casa que, por arder, te deslumbra os sentidos»Miguel TorgaMIGUEL TORGAMiguel Torga nasceu a 12 de Agosto de 1907 em São Martinho da Anta, Trás-os-Montes. Faleceu em 17 de Janeiro de 1995. De seu verdadeiro nome Adolfo Correia da Rocha, Miguel Torga é o pseudónimo literário pelo qual ficou conhecido. Formado em Medicina pela Universidade de Coimbra, colaborou na revista Presença e dirigiu as revistas Sinal e Manifesto. Em 1976 foi distinguido com o Grande Prémio Internacional de Poesia das Bienais Internacionais de Knokke-Heist, em 1980 com o Prémio Morgado de Mateus, em 1981 com o Prémio Montaigne (Alemanha), em 1989 com o Prémio Camões e em 1992 com os prémios Vida Literária da Associação Portuguesa de Escritores e Figura do Ano da Associação dos Correspondentes da Imprensa Estrangeira. A sua obra encontra-se traduzida em diversas línguas. Considerado um dos mais importantes autores portugueses contemporâneos, Miguel Torga foi durante muitos anos o editor dos seus próprios livros.
348 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1944
About the author
Miguel Torga
121 books216 followersMiguel Torga, pseudonym of Adolfo Correia da Rocha was one of the greatest Portuguese writers of the 20th century. He wrote poetry, short stories, theater and a 16 volume diary.
He was born in a village in Trás-os-Montes, northern Portugal, to small-time farmer parents. After a short spell as student in a catholic seminary in Lamego, also in Trás-os-Montes, in 1920 his father sent him to Brazil where he worked on the coffee plantation of an uncle who, finding him to be a clever student, paid his high school there and afterwards his medicine graduation (1933) at the University of Coimbra, in Portugal (to where he returns in 1925).
After graduation he worked in his village and in other places in the country, publishing his books from his own pocket for a number of years. In 1941, he established himself as an otolaryngologist physician in Coimbra.
His agnostic beliefs seems to reflect in his work, that deals mainly with the nobility of the human condition in a beautiful but ruthless world where God is absent or is nothing but a passive and silent, indiferent creator.
After the value of his work was being recognized, he went on to receive several awards, as the Prémio Camões in 1989 and the Montaigne award in 1981. He was several times nominated for the Nobel Prize of Literature, being the last one in 1994, but he never won.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miguel_T...
He was born in a village in Trás-os-Montes, northern Portugal, to small-time farmer parents. After a short spell as student in a catholic seminary in Lamego, also in Trás-os-Montes, in 1920 his father sent him to Brazil where he worked on the coffee plantation of an uncle who, finding him to be a clever student, paid his high school there and afterwards his medicine graduation (1933) at the University of Coimbra, in Portugal (to where he returns in 1925).
After graduation he worked in his village and in other places in the country, publishing his books from his own pocket for a number of years. In 1941, he established himself as an otolaryngologist physician in Coimbra.
His agnostic beliefs seems to reflect in his work, that deals mainly with the nobility of the human condition in a beautiful but ruthless world where God is absent or is nothing but a passive and silent, indiferent creator.
After the value of his work was being recognized, he went on to receive several awards, as the Prémio Camões in 1989 and the Montaigne award in 1981. He was several times nominated for the Nobel Prize of Literature, being the last one in 1994, but he never won.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miguel_T...
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
November 13, 2014
This is a great set of stories from the 1940s describing the life in rural North-Eastern Portugal. As a group, they are somewhat depressing as everyone lives in poverty and the only prospect for improvement seems to lie in emigrating to the United States or Brazil. All in all these tales seem to be very consistent with what I heard from the ¨Portuguese immigrants as I was growing up in Canada in the 1960s.
August 26, 2022
Miguel Torga était un auteur portugais, plus contemporain qu'on aurait tendance à le penser, puisqu'il est mort en 1995. Comme le dit sa traductrice, c'était donc un classique de son vivant. Il est, comme d'autres, assez étrangement méconnu en France, ce d'autant plus que sa femme, Andrée Crabbé était belge et a été décorée de l'ordre national du mérite en France. Sa fille a enseigné à la Sorbonne. Un francophile de plus et des liens avec la montagne, puisque son nom est celui d'une plante montagnarde. Pour la suite de cette analogie, cela devient plus nébuleux : Torga était médecin, a beaucoup publié à compte d'auteur, a vécu au Brésil, a participé de près à la reconstruction du Portugal immédiatement après 1975, avait un cabinet à Coimbra, a été proposé pour le Nobel. Ces contes, ce qu'il y a de plus connu de lui en France, ont été écrits dans les années 40, et Dieu sait qu'il était prolifique !
Sur ces contes maintenant, je passe rapidement sur les questions de texte et de traduction, je ne parle pas portugais. Dans l'ensemble, ils sont revêches comme la montagne, qui s'acharne souvent sur ses habitants, abandonnés de Dieu : jusqu'aux prêtres qui manquent souvent de foi ou finissent défaits. L'auteur évolue un peu entre la misanthropie et l'humour, avec un côté anti-académique, où l'on sent la volonté de ne pas enjoliver entre autres le langage des habitants, sans parler bien entendu des actes. Je me souviens aussi d'un court métrage inspiré de ces contes, de Daisy Lamothe vu au festival du court métrage de Clermont-Ferrand (2000 ou 2001 ?) et qui m'avait paru s'apparenter à une forme d'exorcisme (usage brillant du décor naturel, si je me souviens, c'est tourné en Corse), un peu comme si la lecture de ces contes devait nous protéger de les reproduire. Un paradoxe, pour un auteur agnostique, Dieu étant d'ailleurs plutôt absent dans ces contes.
La rudesse est néanmoins équilibrée par l'humour, qui marque aussi un certain nombre de nouvelles (celle sur Gabriel et son troupeau de voleurs par exemple). C'est en quelque sorte : si tu veux espérer parvenir à la paix, sache que d'autres sont en guerre et qu'il te faudra tirer ton épingle du jeu.
Sur ces contes maintenant, je passe rapidement sur les questions de texte et de traduction, je ne parle pas portugais. Dans l'ensemble, ils sont revêches comme la montagne, qui s'acharne souvent sur ses habitants, abandonnés de Dieu : jusqu'aux prêtres qui manquent souvent de foi ou finissent défaits. L'auteur évolue un peu entre la misanthropie et l'humour, avec un côté anti-académique, où l'on sent la volonté de ne pas enjoliver entre autres le langage des habitants, sans parler bien entendu des actes. Je me souviens aussi d'un court métrage inspiré de ces contes, de Daisy Lamothe vu au festival du court métrage de Clermont-Ferrand (2000 ou 2001 ?) et qui m'avait paru s'apparenter à une forme d'exorcisme (usage brillant du décor naturel, si je me souviens, c'est tourné en Corse), un peu comme si la lecture de ces contes devait nous protéger de les reproduire. Un paradoxe, pour un auteur agnostique, Dieu étant d'ailleurs plutôt absent dans ces contes.
La rudesse est néanmoins équilibrée par l'humour, qui marque aussi un certain nombre de nouvelles (celle sur Gabriel et son troupeau de voleurs par exemple). C'est en quelque sorte : si tu veux espérer parvenir à la paix, sache que d'autres sont en guerre et qu'il te faudra tirer ton épingle du jeu.
May 11, 2023
Tales & More Tales from the Mountain. Miguel Torga.
It took me over a year to read this collection of short stories. Torga was born a few miles from my dad’s village in Northern Portugal. I can only imagine how tough my father’s childhood had been in his village nestled in the mountains. Torga’s stories describe the poverty, hunger and brutal nature of life in the small villages of Tras os Montes. There is humour, pride and hope amongst the tales of superstition, despair and death.
Hearing the familiar names of the villages remind me of my father’s stories of growing up in his “terra”. Tough times. Tough and resilient people from whom we owe everything and have so much to learn from.
It took me over a year to read this collection of short stories. Torga was born a few miles from my dad’s village in Northern Portugal. I can only imagine how tough my father’s childhood had been in his village nestled in the mountains. Torga’s stories describe the poverty, hunger and brutal nature of life in the small villages of Tras os Montes. There is humour, pride and hope amongst the tales of superstition, despair and death.
Hearing the familiar names of the villages remind me of my father’s stories of growing up in his “terra”. Tough times. Tough and resilient people from whom we owe everything and have so much to learn from.
July 16, 2022
Great sense of place, some gems of stories to start, but the huge dose of cynicism became rather heavy going after a while. Fascinating.
April 21, 2009
I really enjoy the unpretentious lucidity of Torga's storytelling here. Each short stories attempt to capture the lives of people of that region in Portugal, framing each of them as a unique impressionistic depiction. Finishing this book, there's left a touching recollection on me of a collage of faces of the peripheral figures, living in the remote recesses of Portugal, quite forgotten and, well, living...
January 16, 2010
I really liked this books. Some of the stories are very touching, other are more humouristic and there were a few i didn't enjoy very much. Miguel Torga has a beautiful writing, too :)
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews