Portuguese novelist Lídia Jorge on honouring her mother's final wish and how war gave her writer's block

Later, I would realise that literature was not just that, but more. When I was 17, The Brothers Karamazov showed me that the ultimate horizon of literature differed from what I knew.

But I never took a break from reading or writing. It wasn't until I was 33 that I realised what I had written deserved to be published. The Day of the Wonders, my first book in 1980, was the intersection of my own joy, born from witnessing life, and the lessons, whether good or bad, that I had learned from great authors.

In your novel The Migrant Painter of Birds" (O Vale da Paixão), the narrator used two voices "I" and "she". Do you think that using several voices can be disruptive for some readers?

I don't think it causes confusion. From the beginning, the reader realises that there is a conflict within the character who assumes herself to be the narrator. I think they understand that she is the result of an illegitimate relationship that is not straightforward.

From a narrative point of view, "The Migrant Painter of Birds" explores how a daughter starts to see the true character of her father, which had been shrouded in lies by their family, only after he dies. In fact, her father, a globetrotter, was seen as a depraved man who shared a blanket with women from all over the world, making it a dirty object.

But in the end, the blanket, this mythical object, arrived in his daughter's hands completely clean. Her father had used it as a canvas to paint birds.

As a result, the central idea of the book can be compared to a combination of the Christian prayers "Deo Profundis" and "Te Deum," which stand for grief over death on one hand and gratitude to God for his gifts on the other.

The daughter's position in the story here takes on two different guises: occasionally, she is close to the narrative as a character and other times, she is a faraway spectator. I think readers can understand this duality instinctively.

You used a spiral structure for this novel, too. As the reader progresses, we revisit the same event, each time from different angles and with more information. Tell us more about this style.

The Migrant Painter of Birds depicts a memory that was lived by the narrator herself, but also by her relatives spanning half a century. It's an intense memory, so exploring it isn't linear.

The daughter of Walter Dias and Maria Ema puts herself in the shoes of various protagonists, from the patriarchal figure who stands in the way of progress, to sons and daughters, each of whom interprets what happened in a different way. The Dias children are each in their own part of the world and only speak to each other from afar.

One reviewer said, when this book was published in France, that The Migrant Painters of Birds (O Vale da Paixão) was an epic about the European diaspora around the world.

But I must say, the narration style I used is prevalent in Portuguese culture. Maybe the language – or perhaps our poetic heritage, or our way of looking at departures and returns – brings out the best in Portuguese storytelling. 

It takes on a ritualistic structure of repetition, a kind of advance and retreat, and a helical structure of thoughts. I feel comfortable with this kind of writing. It really emphasises what I'm trying to say. If every writer has a song in a signature style, then my song, admittedly, is this one.

Your novel "Those We Shall Remember" (Os Memoráveis) is complex and full of political symbolism. To what extent did you intend to criticise your country's social and political problems?

It was written in a very particular period of our collective life. Between 2008 and 2014, Portugal, like most countries in the world, suffered greatly from the sovereign debt issue.

The IMF had to intervene, which was a critical moment for the Portuguese, especially young people who had to emigrate to survive. They started to view what was happening as a destructive fallout from the 1974 Revolution, known as the Carnation Revolution. It was painful to listen to the opinions of people of my generation who lived through that period.

So, I wrote this book, aimed primarily at young people, to show them how the Carnation Revolution had been the first of more than sixty regime changes without bloodshed.

I wrote it with historical accuracy, albeit in a mythological way, so that they would know that Portugal began a movement to democratise societies, which characterised the last quarter of the 20th century – unlike what is happening today throughout the world.

That was the bright side of history. But this book also showed how, amid idealistic soldiers who led by example, some took a stand to abort the very ideals of the Revolution. And they ended up having a decisive place in what was – and still is – our democracy.

So Those We Shall Remember is a political book, but not an ideological one, much less a sectarian one. It's a metaphor for the imperfection of power and disagreements within history.

In your novel The Wind Whistling in the Cranes, the relationship between Milene and Antonino violates social norms regarding race and class. Tell us more.

Yes, this is a book that talks about the violation of the tacit, rigid and implicit norms that shape a society. The Portuguese, as a people who dispersed and made up a unique diaspora from the late 14th century onwards, have a strong concept of their identity.

There was this idea that Portuguese colonisation was mild, that intermarriage was easy and occurred without violence, and that Brazil was the perfect example of this good bond between colonised and coloniser.

Today this myth is falling apart, particularly when we see reports, day after day, that the Portuguese were responsible for founding a whole system of systematic slavery. This involved mass deportations over four centuries, spanning the West Coast of Africa and South America.

But awareness of these realities is recent, and it's mostly academic. "The Wind Whistling in the Cranes" was conceived at the end of the 20th century, before the spread of this knowledge. It resulted from my observations of Portuguese behaviour in the context of the Colonial War, in Angola and Mozambique, where I then lived, and then in Portugal itself.

My idea was that we, as a people, were superficially inclusive, but if you looked deeper, we remained, and remain, racist.

This book tells the story of the castration of a girl so she cannot bear children by a boy who is not white. At the time, in Portugal, it was claimed – and reported – that this was not a Portuguese story. I don't think anyone else can say that today. The story of Milene and Antonino is a story found all over the world.

The philosopher Jacques Rancière explains well that oppression is an instinct of humanity, which only culture can transform. I believe literature can support this change through its poetic portrayal of real life.

"What did goodness have to do with strength?" This is Milene's central question, and the answer is layered throughout the book. Do you think that being a strong person makes you cruel?

In no way, in my view. The truly strong are not cruel. On the contrary, kindness is a strength in itself.

Milene, however, has difficulty understanding life's logic – especially when she sees the rude and cruel ruling the world, while the good are humiliated.

But this girl, with her childlike perspective, wants to establish a link between goodness and strength. She lives in a simple world for simple-minded people. But deep down, she aspires to a more Kantian reality – one in which goodness is a part of beauty.

She's a sincere girl, so she questions why this can't be a reality throughout the book. She knows that she does not have the words to articulate her ideas and that ideas disappear when they can't be demonstrated or proven. She says this repeatedly during her simple conversations with Antonino Mata.

To a different degree, we writers know this, too – that human discourse does not reach the heart of knowledge. Perfect knowledge is not of this world. Only desire is.

Your latest novel, Mercy, was a memory of your mother who died of Covid-19. What were your feelings during the writing process of this novel?

Mercy was written differently from all the others. My mum spent the last three years of her life in a home for the elderly. She went there at her own request and of her own free will. But while she was there, she asked me several times to write a book titled "Mercy".

I never paid much attention to it, but on 8 March 2020, she insisted. I asked her why. She told me she wanted "Mercy" – or "Misericordia" – to be a book about human compassion towards people when they lose their strength and can no longer move independently. I didn't realise that this would be the last talk we would have face-to-face.

Soon afterwards, the home closed its doors to outsiders. Forty days later, my mum passed away from Covid-19 without us ever seeing each other again.

After that, her last request took on great meaning to me. Under the influence of grief, I saw it as an obligation. But what could I do with only a pious title and an intention to make things right? It was outside my wheelhouse.

I found the answers I needed when they handed me her personal belongings, which had been left over at the home after the catastrophe, and I was able to reconstruct her last days.

All I was given was a small cloth bag, which she could hang around her neck, containing a few small sheets of paper and a piece of a pencil, which she used to jot down what was going on when she could no longer lift her notebook.

I was also given her necklace, earrings, and ring, which she had taken to the hospital, despite everything. That's when I realised that she had resisted. She had documented her life to the last breath, which was true to the vibrant whims she carried with her throughout her whole life. She had also fought for her appearance, for her embellishment, to the very end.

So, I began to write this book about what mattered most, the resilience of a person, and a whole community that ultimately loves life under any circumstances. Thus, a book that at first was nothing more than hesitation, ended up being written with a feeling of triumph.

As I retraced the last year of Mrs Alberti's life, the chapters unravelled like a dialogue on destiny. It was a unique experience in my writing life. Alberti's talks with Night represented a kind of contest of wits to see who wins, death or life; this filled my days and pages.

In the end, the character, much like the real figure, refused to leave. She always knew more than Night, mocking Night, refusing to be beaten.

Mrs Alberti, who had always written in her diary all her life, and who believed that reading was a way of living infinite other lives, offered me her story. As you can see, it turned out to be a hybrid book, a mixture of diary, biography, essay, chronicle and poetry, which, for simplicity's sake, was called a novel.

How do you approach the process of writing a novel?

It's as if there's a large body of water, in the form of a cloud, inside my head. And suddenly, having found a way to break the cloud, the water begins to flow through the earth to form a river.

Along the course of the water, landscapes, scenes, characters, dialogues and ideas appear. Everything that was just water at the beginning becomes a world. Is it easy? No. But it's enchanting.

When I start a book, I still don't know where I'm going; most of what's going to happen is a surprise to me.

That's why I love novels. They're long enough to allow characters to evolve. In the end, of course, they know so much more than I do. I learn as I write. By the end of each book, I'm a different person.

What are your thoughts on the future of Portuguese literature?

I have a good feeling about it. Portuguese literature represents a robust cultural heritage and, at the same time, is very distinctive among other European literatures.

The lyrical slant of Portuguese poetry and the poetic energy of our narratives sets it apart. The experience of ocean travel and our diaspora's size makes for a very distinctive literature. The sea and distance are very present themes.

The last few decades have allowed several writers with powerful voices to be internationally recognised, such as Fernando Pessoa, José Saramago, Lobo Antunes, and Sofia de Mello Breyner. Authors that have emerged recently follow the same path. Some new writers depict the Portuguese subject in fiction with a lot of characters.

Naturally, today's themes are increasingly wide-ranging. Globalisation is not just about goods and the internet, so the themes authors engage in are also global.

And yet, societies don't dream or live uniformly.  Everything is changing quickly, but global literature is still the sum of regional and national literature, much like languages are.

The International Book Fair of Guadalajara granted the renowned FIL Prize in Romance Languages 2020 to you, Lídia Jorge, "because of the magnitude of her work, which portrays how human beings face the great events of history". Can you tell us about your latest project?

When I started Mercy, I was writing another book that has since been put on pause. I don't know how to get back to it. The world, and life, has changed.

That project was intended to be a broad narrative about people from various continents meeting at a particular spot in Europe. A kind of replica of books written by authors who are interested in the fate of the West. And, above all, an exploration of the appeal that this part of the globe holds for others.

But now, there's another seemingly endless war going on in the centre of Europe with repercussions all over the world.

I am a writer-antennae. I'm connected to what's going on around me. The passage of time always concerns me. So, in my head, there is a project, not yet clear, about this gigantic boat that threatens destruction. I still don't know how to explain it. The outbreak of this war has rearranged all the pieces of my mental puzzle.

I imagine a thousand writers, in front of their computers, hands on the keys, having the same thought.

A major economic and political crisis is currently affecting the world, especially Europe, which may affect future generations. Are you concerned about Europe returning to the Cold War era?

The Cold War Era is an interesting name for a period of fear that kept peace in suspense despite a real threat. Today, what everyone fears isn't a new Cold War, but another, far more dramatic reality. We don't want to name it out loud so as not to give the enemies of humanity any ideas. 

Yes, I am concerned about Europe, which is a ball in the hands of the three empires vying for leadership of the Earth.

And I'm worried about the values of freedom, democracy, and the willingness to fulfil the Charter of Human Rights that Europe represents.

The weakening of Europe will be the weakening of several good utopias among which free people move. Despite everything, my optimism is undoubtedly more biological than rational.

Artificial intelligence is a big topic of discussion today, as is the danger it poses to individual creativity. Is AI in literature a source of concern for you?

Many aspects of Artificial Intelligence pose major dilemmas for humankind, including authorship – as scientists and academics are well aware.

However, when it comes to literature, I don't think the risks are very high. Because what AI proposes is a recomposition of linguistic elements. It can't replicate, through text, human surprise because it doesn't have that experience of existence.

Human life and its unrepeatable adventures form the basis of poetic creation. No device can invent life on its own. No ChatGPT can create a new "Maritime Ode" that does not result only in the recomposition of the nine hundred verses written by Fernando Pessoa.

I asked a digital programme to do it, to give me a new "Maritime Ode", and what it produced was a short, electronic poem, full of commonplaces and insipid sadness. When I saw the result, I clapped my hands and wrote to my friends to calm down.

I was reassured.