Author ÁLAMO OLIVEIRAAuthor ÁLAMO OLIVEIRA – one of the Azores' most acclaimed and prolific living writers and leading cultural figures – was born in the village of Raminho on the island of Terceira. He studied Philosophy at the Angra do Heroísmo Seminary and served in the Portuguese army in Guinea-Bissau. Although the rest of his immediate family emigrated to California, Álamo remained in the Azores, where he pursued a distinguished government career in addition to being a novelist, poet, playwright, lyricist, essayist, public speaker, painter and founder-director of Angra do Heroísmo’s leading theater company, the Alpendre Theater. He is coordinator of the twice-yearly journal andarILHAgem, launched by the Azores' Directorate of Communities in 2007.

 

In Spring 2002 Álamo became the first Portuguese writer-in-residence at the University of California-Berkeley. Other honors include the Prémio de Teatro Almeida Garrett for his play A solidão da casa do regalo and the Maré Viva prize for the novel Até hoje (memórias de cão). He is one of three major Azorean writers profiled in the 2005 Portuguese documentary Aventuras do Espirito, which includes a biographical sketch and commentaries by the author, as well as Álamo reading from his short-story collection Com Perfume e com Veneno.

 

Various writings of Álamo's have been translated into English, French, Spanish, Croatian and Japanese. Copies of his novel Já não gosto de chocolates, from which I No Longer Like Chocolates is translated, are held in over a dozen major academic and public libraries throughout the United States, and it has been taught in North American university courses in Modern Portuguese Fiction and Portuguese Island Culture. Random House Kodansha published Kiwamu Hamaoka's Japanese translation of I No Longer Like Chocolates in 2008 (see cover art, below right).

OTHER BOOKS PUBLISHED BY ÁLAMO OLIVEIRA:

ANTHOLOGIES
2003 O meu coração é assim (edited by Diniz Borges, with preface)
1984 Triste Vida Leva a Garça (1967-81)
FICTION
1999 Já não gosto de chocolates
1997 Com Perfume e com Veneno
1992 Pátio d'Alfândega meia-noite
1991 Contos com desconto
1986 Até hoje (memórias de cão)
1982 Burra preta com uma lágrima
POETRY
1998 António, porta-te como uma flor
1992 Impressões de boca
1987 Erva-azeda
1986 Textos inocentes
1983 Nem Mais Amor que Fogo, with Emanuel Jorge Botelho
1982 Itinerário das gaivotas
1980 Eu fui ao Pico piquei-me
1979 Cantar o corpo
1976 Os quinze misteriosos mistérios
1974 Fábulas
1973 Poemas de(s)amor
1971 Pão verde
1968 A vinha mão aberta
PLAYS
2004 A solidão da casa do regalo
2002 Judite--nome de guerra, Almada Negreiro (adapted)
1999 Morte que mataste lira, with Carlos Alberto Moniz
1995 Os sonhos do infante, 2nd edition
1994 Manuel, seis vezes pensei em ti, 2nd edition
1984 Missa terra lavrada
1984 Sabeis quem é este João?
1981 Uma hortênsia para Brianda
1974 Morte ou vida do poeta
1974 Um Quixote, 2nd edition
ESSAYS
1996 Olá, pobreza!
1982 Quando o mar galgou a terra (abordagem)
1978
Almeida Firmino / Poeta dos Açores

 

Translator DINIZ BORGESTranslator DINIZ BORGES, Tulare County's High School Teacher of the Year for 2007-8, teaches Portuguese at Tulare Union HS and at College of the Sequoias, where he directs its Institute for Azorean-American Studies. The Praia da Vitória, Terceira, native holds a B.A. from Chapman University and M.A. from California State University-Dominguez Hills. He writes regularly on American topics for Portuguese-language newspapers in the US, Canada and Portugal, edits the fine-arts section of the California-based Portuguese Tribune and, since 1990, has moderated a cultural television program on KNXT-49 in Fresno. Diniz was President of the Council of Portuguese Communities for the United States, Canada and Bermuda from 2004-8, co-chaired the Luso-American Education Foundation’s 30th annual conference in Tulare in 2006, and was recently elected Vice President of the Tulare-Angra do Heroísmo Sister City Foundation.  He is currently President of the APPEU&C [Association of Portuguese Teachers of the US and Canada], in which capacity he led their summer 2008 conference in the Azores, and will be leading their July 10-17, 2009, conference in Bermuda.

OTHER BOOKS BY DINIZ BORGES:
2009 My Californian Friends: Poetry by Vasco Pereira da Costa (translated with Katharine Baker) [October 2009]

2005 O outro lado da saudade (collected newspaper columns, 1997-2005)
2004 Nem sempre a saudade chora - antologia de poesia açoriana sobre emigração
2003 O meu coração é assim (anthology of works by Álamo Oliveira, with preface)
2003 On a Leaf of Blue (bilingual anthology of contemporary Azorean poetry)
2003 América: O outro rosto
2002 Alfred Lewis: Escritor de emoções
2000 Uma outra América: textos do real e do utópico
1996
América: outro lado do sonho

 

Translator KATHARINE BAKERTranslator KATHARINE BAKER, a second-generation native Californian with roots on the islands of Flores and São Jorge in the Azores, earned degrees from the University of California-Berkeley and the University of Maryland, and studied Portuguese at the University of Pittsburgh. Among other translating projects, she and Diniz Borges have completed Vasco Pereira da Costa's My Californian Friends: Poetry and are now working on Dr. Eduardo Mayone Dias' The Portuguese Presence in California (both to be published by Portuguese Heritage Publications of California in 2009); she has also finished a draft of Álamo Oliveira's play Bocas de mulheres [The Mouths of Women], and is collaborating on a portfolio of Azorean literature in translation for Solo Press (tentative publication date 2010). Contributions by her have appeared in Maré Cheia, the fine-arts section of the Portuguese Tribune. She created and regularly updates this website.

OTHER TRANSLATIONS BY KATHARINE BAKER:

2009 My Californian Friends: Poetry by Vasco Pereira da Costa (translated with Diniz Borges) [October 2009]

2008 Álamo Oliveira's essay in Capelinhos: A Volcano of Synergies (50th anniversary of eruptions)

2007 ILHA, by Gabriela Silva (poems translated with Sandy Ventura; photos by Kristie McLean)

 

Click here to order I No Longer Like Chocolates now.

 

 

Cover art for the Japanese edition.

 

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