CATARINA NUNES DE ALMEIDA
Title of the project: The Journey to the Orient in Portuguese Contemporary Literature (1990-2012)
Scholarship reference: SFRH/BPD/84592/2012
Start and end date: February, 2013 – January, 2019
Description
This research project proposes to study the theme of the journey to the Orient in contemporary Portuguese narratives. At the turn of the twentieth century for the twenty-first century, contemporary Portuguese literature retakes an interest in travel narratives to the Orient, giving rise to a heterogeneous set of works published in the postcolonial context of the last decades. This observation, together with the fact that Portugal was at the core of the historical decentring towards the Orient and the world, justifies an approach to these works and to the importance of the symbolism expressed by these “journeys” nowadays. This research will thus provide the identification and systematic study of these texts, where the Orient appears as an ideal setting for updating the use of themes and figurative styles from other traditions.