16 - Patrícia Galvão on Pessoa in Brazil, 1955–61

Summary

The celebrated Brazilian novelist, journalist and woman of letters Patricia Galvão, known as ‘Pagu’ (1910–62), dedicated eight newspaper columns to Fernando Pessoa, who was almost unknown in Brazil at the time, the first one published in Fanfulla (São Paulo) in 1950 in the series ‘De Artes e de Literatura’ [On Art and Literature], followed by seven more in the newspaper A Tribuna (Santos), from 1955 to 1961. Written over a period of eleven years, four of the eight commemorate the fifteenth, twentieth and twenty-fifth anniversaries of the poet's death (in 1950, 1955 and 1960, respectively). The remaining four report on personalities and events connected to Pessoa and his work: a declamation of his poetry by Rui Afonso in Santos; the publication by the exiled Portuguese poet and essayist Adolfo Casais Monteiro of his book Estudos sobre a Poesia de Fernando Pessoa [Studies on Fernando Pessoa's Poetry] by the Livraria Agir in Rio de Janeiro; translations of Pessoa into French by Armand Guibert in volume 73 of the series ‘Poètes d'aujourd'hui’ from Seghers in Paris, including his ‘international presentation’ of the poem ‘Ode Maritima’ [Maritime Ode]; and finally the notice of publication by Editora Aguilar of the Obra Poética [Poetry] in 1960, edited by the prominent Portuguese scholar Maria Aliete Galhoz, as well as the ‘Antologia Moderna’ [Modern Anthology] by João Alves das Neves published in São Paulo by the Editora Íris in 1961 that contained a selection of the poet's greatest works.