Going to the Horizon – Poetry Collection from Marcolino Candeias

Marcolino Candeias

Marcolino Candeias (M. C. Coelho Lopes) was born on 28 August 1952 and died on 1 May 2016 on the island of Terceira. While still a high school student, he became a poet in academic pages and in ‘Glacial’, the literary supplement of “A União”, publishing “Por ter escrito Amor” (1971), a set of poems that, at the time, caused a sensation among the younger generation and some controversy among the older ones; he then took part in various cultural activities, having been a member of the Sextante cultural co-operative, being very close to the cultural action then led by José Orlando Bretão, to whom he was linked by strong bonds of friendship.

He did his military service in Angola during the troubled period of decolonisation, after which he began his higher education studies at the University of Coimbra. At this university he obtained a bachelor’s degree in Romance Philology and then a degree in Modern Languages and Literatures, with distinction.

A trainee secondary school teacher, he was an assistant lecturer at the universities of the Azores and Coimbra. He published “Na distância deste tempo” (1984). In 1986, he left for Canada (Montreal) to work as Reader in Portuguese at the University of Montreal, where he taught Portuguese and Brazilian culture as well as the language. As head of the Section of Portuguese and Brazilian Studies, in the late 1980s he represented the first mineur project at that university {minor} en Études luso-brésiliennes. He stayed in Canada for eleven years. While still in Montreal, he was involved in the Portuguese-lan-guage community press. In the meantime, he worked as an advisor to the management and board of directors of the Caisse d’économie des Portugais de Montréal, a financial co-operative founded by Portuguese emigrants and affiliated to the powerful Mouvement Desjardins network of savings banks.

When he returned to the Azores, he was director of the Casa da Cultura da Juventude de Angra do Heroísmo (1987-1999), a position he held until he was appointed Regional Director of Culture in the last year of the VII Regional Government (1999-2001) and then of the VIII Regional Government, and President of the Angra do Heroísmo Classified Area Office (2001-2005).

A participant in cultural activities from a very young age, he emerged as a poet with the Glacial Generation, which made a considerable contribution to literary activity in the Azores. Regarded as one of the outstanding voices of Azorean poetry, he has published two books of poetry and has collaborated widely in Portuguese and foreign publications; he has some poems translated into English and Slovak and is represented in various national and foreign poetry anthologies.

Marcolino Candeias is considered one of the most important voices of the group to which he belonged and which has come to be known as the Glacier Generation, fundamentally concerned with the deepest values related to society, freedom, democracy and the role of man in this context, and which made a considerable contribution to literary activity in the Azores. Undoubtedly one of the archipelago’s greatest poets. He has written for national and foreign newspapers and magazines, as well as some poems translated into English and Slovak.

He is also the author of oral stories, of which there are video recordings, which tell the vision of a former emigrant from Terceira with rural origins in California (Joe Canoa), about the values and behaviour of the surrounding world. He is represented in numerous poetry anthologies.

Diniz Borges

Diniz Borges was born in 1958 on the island of Terceira. At age ten, he emigrated with

his family to the United States. He has a BA in Social Science and an MA in the humanities with a thesis exploring the past’s role in American ethnic literature. He has taught Portuguese language and culture at Tulare Union High School, College of the Sequoias, and California State University, Fresno. He is the founding director of the Portuguese Beyond Borders Institute at Fresno State. He has published ten books in Portuguese and translated or co-translated seven different books. He has also organized several anthologies.

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ISBN: 9789897356063