It is no wonder that most tourist tours in Lisbon start in Praça do Comércio—also named Terreiro do Paço, [i] the Palaca Yard, because of its historical function as site of the Royal Palace, and around which the 15th century on the largest city shipyards were built. The Praça is strategic to the city, and the cityscape is breathtaking. If you face south, toward the Cais das Colunas, the Columns Pier, you will have the river on a platter and the South Margin, home of some of those who can't find an affordable place to live in Lisbon, due to high cost of residential property and rentals. If you face north, you will glimpse the monumental Arco da Rua Augusta (Augusta Street Arch), a starting point for those who head to the city centre. The place is always busy since early morning, although most visitors arrive by mid-morning. Such visitors will have missed the locals who cross the river twice a day, cacilheiros, [ii] who have inspired a great number of traditional popular songs in their daily arrival from the South Margin on their way to their workplaces in the city. These will later complete the pendular movement at the end of the day, going back to the councils of Almada and Seixal.

The Tagus has inspired writers, poets, and songwriters. The river that flows along Lisbon has been crucial to the city and to the country, namely by being the locale of departure of navigators during the Discoveries in the Renaissance, an achievement represented by the Padrão dos Descobrimentos, further west on the river front. [iii] The monument reminds us of the fact that the Discoveries shaped Portuguese history as a major event and a display of cutting edge sailing technology, putting the country on the map of the most influential political powers of Europe and of the world at the time. The navigators sailed from Belém, not far from the Terreiro do Paço, known over the centuries for its ancient warehouses, for being a site for commerce deals, and nowadays for its renewed waterfront. The iconic square has also been at the center of Lisbon's most important reconstruction after the devastating earthquake of 1755. [iv]

Referred to by Baptista-Bastos (1933-2017) [v] as a river ‘of departure', the Portuguese writer and journalist echoes Alberto Caeiro, one of poet Fernando Pessoa's heteronyms, who states the following in O Guardador de Rebanhos:

By the Tagus you go to the World.
Beyond the Tagus there's America
And the fortune of those who found it. [vi]

The same poem presents the Tagus to the reader:

The Tagus is more beautiful than the river that runs by my village,
But the Tagus is not more beautiful than the river that runs by my village
Because the Tagus is not the river that runs by my village. [vii]

Baptista-Bastos’ statement, uttered in the 1970s, takes into account movements included in the country's historical past, but also contemporary choices of the Portuguese population during the 1960s and 1970s. The Portuguese emigrated to other countries in central Europe such as France, Germany, and Luxemburg, in search of work and alternatives of survival. These emigration waves left scars within the country and had consequences that are still felt today, as these emigrants were known never to return to their home country, as second-generation emigration is integrated in the hosting countries. Also attributed to these emigration movements is the desertification felt in the country's hinterland.

A leap into the unknown, this experience began as an underground movement across land borders. At first, the experience was named a salto, as people, mostly men, were undocumented to travel outside of the country and payed to be conducted abroad by others who charged a significant fee to perform such a risky task. Decades later, after the enforcement of the Schengen Agreement, the Portuguese population moves freely through Europe in search of job alternatives.

Nevertheless, the Tagus is also a ‘river of arrival’ due to its status as a major destination for the population that arrived in Lisbon after the Decolonization of Portuguese colonies in 1975; also expressive of arrival is the arrival of WWII refugees on their way to America; the Tagus was also the arrival point of a wave of immigration of foreign workers attracted by job offers during the preparation of the Expo '98 in the country's capital; moreover, the tourism boom witnessed since the first decade of the 21st century originated a third wave of arrivals with a major impact on Portugal's economy.

The intimate relationship between the river and the life of the city and its inhabitants and visitors is debated and celebrated by literature among other forms of artistic expression, such as music. In fact, the Terreiro do Paço, the imposing square facing the river, witnessed rare moments of Portuguese history. It was also notorious for staging the acts of faith of the Tribunal of the Santo Ofício, [viii] in one of the darkest periods of the history of the country. In the 20th century, the iconic square was home of several state departments, some of them later displaced, and also a car parking lot, a solution fortunately nowadays abandoned since the ‘90s. The square has since recovered its former dignity.

Another iconic place facing the river, Belém, served as a deposit of wooden containers for the belongings of returnees as they moved to Lisbon, near the Padrão dos Descobrimentos, [ix] the monument that symbolizes the departure of the navigators. Nowadays, Belém is one of the most important and vibrant cultural centers of the city, touting monuments and cultural vestiges such as museums.

It was also from the Terreiro do Paço that Marquês de Pombal (1699-1782), Secretary of State during the reign of King D. José, ordered the renewal of the city in the 18th century after the major earthquake that destroyed the center of Lisbon. The square lines of the then visionary architect Eugénio dos Santos (1711-1760) who designed it shaped the city center, the Baixa Pombalina, to this very day.

During WWII, thousands of refugees arrived in Lisbon on their way to America, as O Paraíso Triste, by Maria João Martins recalls (Lisboa: Vega, 1994), an account of the city at that time and the daily ordeals they had to endure during their stay in the city. During their brief stay in Lisbon and Estoril, these refugees did not make their way quietly either in the city and in the elegant holiday site. The author states how these foreigners, namely women coming from central Europe, introduced new trends in fashion and ‘shook up’ Lisbon, its cultural frame of mind frozen since the 19th century. [x] Lisbon would only be a brief stop on their way to America, as the movie Casablanca shows.

Not long after, the ports of the Tagus waterfront witnessed the departure of Portuguese troops to the colonies during the Colonial War of the 1960s. It was in this same site that authorities honored the families of deceased soldiers. In the late 20th century, attention turned again to Lisbon, when the rehabilitated river waterfront north of the city, a former trash dump, hosted the 1998 World Expo. Major public works were then undertaken that transformed the site and attracted a great number of qualified and undifferentiated workers, as the city, as well as the country, went through a leap of development. The Park of Nations, as the site was named after the exhibition, turned into a major new hub of the city, an example that would be replicated by the Polis Program [xi] throughout the country in the waterfront sites of different cities.

The return to an unfamiliar city

Engaging in a vibrant literary scene, authors appeal to a faithful and growing community of readers, as O Retorno (Lisbon: Tinta da China, 2011/2012) by Dulce Maria Cardoso (DMC), a major literary success that approaches the Portuguese decolonization and its consequences including the arrival of half a million people, is a prime example. Somehow, the title O Retorno states a paradox—most of these people were returning to an unfamiliar city, capital of an unfamiliar country.

The arrival of newcomers from the former colonies in 1975 can be referred as an example of this new profile of the city and its river as a destination. The narrator of O Retorno approaches the ordeal endured by a family forced to move from the environment it is familiar with in Luanda to a completely unknown city, echoing the experience of many families. The sense of loss of a previous life, perfect as it can be, reshaped by memory, with all its assets, namely a bond to a place and displacement, pervades DMC's O Retorno.

The narrative starts with a but. This is a curious word choice. It is against all grammar rules to start a sentence with but, deliberately chosen to underline the distance, the strangeness felt by newcomers in a city where everything is different, from the food to the climate, the clothes and the accent of the shared language, to the adversity of the situation: “But there are cherries in the motherland. Big, glossy cherries that the girls wear like earrings.” [xii]

The city is mentioned in the narrative to underline differences, including the ways residents and the newcomers dress. The novel leads the reader through predicaments experienced by a white Portuguese family rooted in Angola, then a Portuguese colony, that is forced to leave for Portugal in 1975 during the decolonization process. As the author stated, (and although not a biographical account, despite the fact that she went through a similar experience) it is a reflection of the dramatic life changes experienced by about half a million people that, during the same period, fled from the Portuguese colonies to return to their home country due to extreme circumstances.

This novel, Book Review Special Award Winner in 2011 (Ler /Booktaylors), Book of the Year in 2011 (awarded by newspapers Expresso, Público, and Ler Magazine), and recipient of the 2011 Pen Club Award, makes a groundbreaking statement that challenges the predominantly optimistic narrative of what is considered a successful achievement: the moving of a large contingent of persons from the African continent to a European country and their subsequent adaptation to new life conditions and integration into Portuguese society.

Furthermore, the novel's title exposes the irony of the situation, as most of these people, namely the younger people, did not know a home other than the African colonies where they lived (Angola, Mozambique, and Guiné-Bissau), and saw themselves in a new environment, in a previously unknown place (Portugal), itself at the time undergoing deep political, social, and cultural turmoil. The unavoidable tensions of the period are the prime literary materials of O Retorno, narrated through the perspective of Rui, a young white boy from a middleclass family, lending unique insight to this traumatic experience.

The book's statement challenges the mainstream politics of the time, the politicians themselves and their decisions, and the priorities of the Revolution. Last but not least, the book even attacks the Portuguese population and their behavior towards newcomers. While based on the hardships of a family of four, the book keeps their experiences and perspectives broad enough to be representative of many others, as is depicted later in detail. It also represents cultural diversity amidst hostility and frequent clashes between residents and newcomers—namely hostility concerning language.

Although O Retorno is not a single example, it stands out in a literary trend initiated in the 1970s by authors who witnessed these experiences after others had written about the colonial war, be it the conflict itself or social life on the sidelines. Since then, a great number of names brought to the literary arena provide different perspectives from different colonies as well as varying perspectives from different generations.

As author and opinion maker Helena Matos puts it, the return of national citizens left an enduring imprint on Portugal. With the arrival of the returnees, Portuguese society underwent a process Helena Matos defines as ‘Africanization', [xiii] as the newcomers were not all white—quite on the contrary—as was to be expected. The concept used by this author to define such a phenomenon echoes the notion of hybridity by introducing new items of discussion and negotiation in an environment where former residents and newcomers have to cope with different social values, frequently conflicting political perspectives, and different expectations. And if Ashcroft, Garreth, and Tiffin [xiv] use this concept to define situations during the colonial period, it is undeniable that the return of former African settlers meant that the emergence of transcultural forms (be they linguistic, cultural, political, or ethnic) was transferred from the colonial site to the European former colonial power.

The ‘Africanization’ of the Portuguese society underlined by Helena Matos also stresses the fact defended by those who consider that colonialism does not end with the term of the colonial period: in fact, situations of conflict and poverty, social disadvantage and inequality, can be found in the European space, as Robert Young states:

The postcolonial has always been concerned with interrogating the interrelated histories of violence, domination, inequality, and injustice, with addressing the fact that, and the reasons why, millions of people in this world still live without things that most of those in the West take for granted—clean water, for example. [xv]

Since then, his theme is represented in literature and more recently in the entertainment industry. However, more often than not, the Portuguese decolonization issue has been considered a closed matter since the generations, that arrived in the country in 1975, both young and old, have now been totally integrated into the country's social fabric. The novel O Retorno opens an old wound that most considered healed, in the sense that it challenges the notion of success of the decolonization process, and within it, the operation of the return of nationals, reopening critical discussion surrounding the issue. It also stresses the role of literature—in witnessing recent history—as a poignant medium: committed, creative, and totally different from journalistic discourse.

DMC's novel approaches this recent period of Portuguese History, representing the departure from the former colonies of a large contingent of settlers in territories that underwent, at the time, a transition from a colonial regime to self-determination and sovereignty. The narrative begins with the ordeal of leaving due to the hesitation of the father, and as the family arrives in Lisbon, the capital of the country, their identity endures permanent challenges, echoing the experiences of people in similar circumstances. Although representing a small family of four, the narrative clearly points to a collective experience, thus granting reflection about a succession of episodes, inscribing them in contemporary history, and making a contribution to the definition of the complex concept of Portuguese identity since the last quarter of the 20th century. The novel also presents the author's statement about the use of a dramatic experience as literary material: literature elaborates on grieving, suffering, loss, displacement, inadequacy, conflict, and hostility rather than success, celebration, happiness, and achievement.

As other literary creations published during the 20th century, O Retorno is an example of literary production about the aftermath of the Empire, a counter-narrative containing a conflicting perspective. As The Empire Writes Back underlines, [xvi] the exploration of cultural references and sets of values contributes to the building of a multilayered collective memory. However, the statement of O Retorno is not its only asset: the power of its political discourse is inextricable from the impact of the literary counterpart, innovative and compelling.

The very title of the novel (in English, The Return ) [xvii] ironically underlines the fact that most of the returned, [xviii] as they were called, namely the younger people, knew no other homeland than the one they were fleeing from, as most of them had traveled from Portugal to several colonies as small children or had been born there. Furthermore, the fact that DMC approaches the circumstances of the flight from Luanda, the arrival in Lisbon, and the clashes of the integration as prime literary material, stresses the author's sense of opportunity and originality, her ability to find her own voice, once, as said before, the time passed since then and the integration of these subjects smoothed the issue, tending to close the matter for the public opinion. Most of this originality is presented by characters who thrive in an environment of intimidation and threat—which is emotionally violent—and, upon arrival, do not experience better conditions, instead facing hostility and prejudice.

O Retorno is a recent example of how the return of Portuguese residents in the former colonies triggered Portugal's literary imagination. Manuel Arouca, though not having achieved similar critical acclaim as Cardoso, represents a love affair during the Colonial War [xix] in Deixei o meu coração em África (Lisboa: Oficina do Livro, 2005). In this novel, the Tagus again appears as a river of departure, underlining the relationship between historical moments of the country and its river, in a circumstance of poignant remembrance for families, the departure of their sons to war:

In that Sunday morning, my father's Peugeot truck headed to the harbour of Lisbon. He was driving. The attention the payed to the road, the usual silence and the serious expression left me no doubt of how he felt about his son leaving to war. My mother turned back over and over, and passed her fingers through my hair. She smiled at every move, dedramatising. I had my mouth glued to the window and it seemed it was my breath that clouded the two ships, the Uíge and the Príncipe Perfeito, which would transport the troops, respectively, to Guinea and Mozambique. [xx]

Unlike O Retorno, Arouca's novel is not only about departure and return, but also about the state of existing ‘in-between,’ represented as an adventure overseas with all that comes with it: danger, confrontation and loss, life assessment, and eventually the achievement of maturity. Arouca's hero leaves the country through the river and eventually returns to the city after the war, thus rendering the narrative totally different from Cardoso's. Conveyed as an accident in their lives, recruitment to the Colonial War is represented by the narrator as an initiation rite with the tragedies inherent to the conflict but also a togetherness that binds people under similar circumstances.

Not until 2005 had mainstream literary production presented a novel such as O Retorno or authors deeply engaged in the effort to write about the nostalgic past of the colonial period (Manuel Arouca among others). Since then, the book market has witnessed the emergence of African writers in the Portuguese language writing from the perspective of the past and present of their recent independent nations (such as Mozambican Mia Couto), and even writers that invest in the ‘in-betweenness’ of their countries and Portugal (the Angolan author José Eduardo Agualusa). These Portuguese writers are contemporary examples of authors who have represented the empire and the colonies in literature, expressing quite often conflicting views about the relations of Portugal with these territories and the politics surrounding them, thus taking part in a wider debate on the subject. After narratives with the colonial war as a theme emerged, such as the successful António Lobo Antunes's Os Cus de Judas (Lisbon, Vega, 1975), [xxi] the reading community was eager for the next step: the decolonization and the return.

This effort to deal with Portugal's recent past has also been featured in the television industry, with the TV series Depois do Adeus (SP Televisão, RTP, 2010), which addressed similar themes to the novel O Retorno.

It is only natural and predictable that, along with foreign attention towards landscape and culture, Portuguese literature will also benefit from a wider interest. As a more recent newcomer to the arena of World Literature, it opens interpretation and research to new angles and approaches, representing voices of a small nation with an ancient history and a cosmopolitan experience of centuries-old relationships with other peoples and cultures.

While Europe struggles to keep its foundational values and waves of foreigners in growing numbers seek its most western country to visit and to inhabit as a safe haven, the Portuguese themselves wonder what Europe's future will be—both Portugal's future and its relationship with Europe. One thing is for certain: literature will continue challenging our everyday lives and anxieties. Portugal is currently witnessing a boom in reading habits, but will this be a trend for years to come? And young Portuguese girls will still wear cherries pending from their ears as earrings. And eventually post them in their selfies in Instagram.

Notes:

• i. The phrase in Portuguese for Place of Commerce, was for two centuries the home of the kings of Portugal D. Manuel and D. José I, and for decades has hosted several government departments, such as Justice and Finances. It's one of the largest squares in Lisbon and considered a symbol of political power of the city. (return to text)
• ii. The name traditionally given to the boats that link the two margins of the river, namely from Cacilhas, a riverfront neighborhood in the Almada council, in the South Margin. (return to text)
• iii. The Padrão of the Discoveries is a monument, in Belém, west of the Terreiro do Paço, built to mark the spot in the river from which the vessels sailed to the Discoveries. (return to text)
• iv. The Earthquake of November 1, 1755, followed by a tsunami and fires, resulted in the total destruction of downtown Lisbon, and the death of more than 10 thousand people. The city was later rebuilt according to a plan designed by the Marquês de Pombal (1699-1782), then Secretary of State. (return to text)
• v. Armando Baptista-Bastos was a great talker, a charismatic polemist and as a newspaper man used to have an audience for his stories and statements. He was a journalist in a number of newspapers, among which Diário Popular, a newspaper published from Lisbon and distributed all over the country, were I met him. (return to text)
• vi. The Keeper of Sheep (1914). Translated by Nuno Hipólito, 2015. (return to text)
• vii. The Keeper. (return to text)
• viii. Another name for the Portuguese Inquisition. (return to text)
• ix. The exhibition Retornar – Traços de Memória marked the passing of four decades of the movement known as the return from the former Portuguese colonies which had its peak during the air bridge from Luanda to Lisbon in 1975. (return to text)
• x. Martins, Maria João (1994). O Paraíso Triste. Lisboa: Vega, 27. (return to text)
• xi. The Polis Program is an urban rehabilitation management initiative, funded by the European Union and managed by the Portuguese government. (return to text)
• xii. The Return (2016). London: MacLehose Press. Trad. Ángel-Gurría Quintana. n/p. (return to text)
• xiii. Baptista, Cristina (2012). A Força da Ficção. Lisboa: SP Televisão. 306. (return to text)
• xiv. Ashcrof, Garreth, Tiffin (2007). Key Concepts in Postcolonial Studies. New York: Routledge. vii-ix. (return to text)
• xv. Young, Robert. “Postcolonial Remains.” Reviewing Imperial Conflicts. Ana Mendes and Cristina Baptista, eds. (2014). London: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. 9. (return to text)
• xvi. Ashcroft, Griffiths, Tiffin (2002). The Empire Writes Back. New York: Routledge. (return to text)
• xvii. Trans. Ángel-Gurría Quintana (return to text)
• xviii. As Helena Matos argues, in her column about this issue in the newspaper Público, the term ‘refugee’ would be more appropriate to define these subjects; nevertheless, that was not the term in use. Some of these consider more accurate the term ‘expatriate'. (return to text)
• xix. The Colonial War opposed Portugal to the country's former colonies (Angola, Mozambique, Guiné) and span from 1961 to 1974. (return to text)
• xx. Arouca, Manuel (2005). Deixei o meu coração em África. Lisboa: Oficina do Livro. 50. My translation. (return to text)
• xxi. In Portuguese slang, Cus de Judas is an expression meaning an extremely faraway site, a metaphor used for the location of the colonies, far from the centre. (return to text)

Sources:

• Arouca, Manuel. Deixei o meu coração em África. Lisbon: Oficina do Livro. 2005.
• Ashcroft, Griffiths, Tiffin. The Empire Writes Back. New York: Routledge. 2002.
• -----. Key Concepts in Postcolonial Studies. New York: Routledge. 2007.
• Baptista, Cristina. A Força da Ficção. Lisbon: SP Televisão. 2012
• Caeiro, Alberto (1914). The Keeper of Sheep. Translated by Nuno Hipólito, 2015.
• Cardoso, Dulce Maria . O Retorno. Lisbon: Tinta da China. 2011.
• -----. The Return. Trad. Ángel-Gurría Quintana. London: MacLehose Press. 2016.
• Depois do Adeus. SP Televisão, RTP. Directed by Patrícia Sequeira. 2010.
• Lobo Antunes, António. Os Cus de Judas. Lisbon: Vega. 1975.
• Martins, Maria João. O Paraíso Triste. Lisbon: Vega. 1994.
• Young, Robert. “Postcolonial Remains.” Reviewing Imperial Conflicts. Ana Mendes and Cristina Baptista, eds. London: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. 2014.