Essays of Imagination with the Landscape: The Alentejo by Antunes da Silva

Ensaios da Imaginação com a Paisagem (Essays of Imagination with the Landscape) is a study on the works of Armando Antunes da Silva (Évora, 1921-1997), developed around two main objectives: to determine the uniqueness of this writer within Portuguese literature and to trace, throughout the second half of the 20th century, the evolution of the Alentejo, a region present throughout Antunes da Silva's work as both an object of reflection and a source of lyricism.

To achieve these goals, we selected three of the author's works—the novel Suão (1960) and his two diaries, Jornal I (1987) and Jornal II (1990). The historical period documented in these books, coinciding with their publication dates, ensured that they encompassed a significant stretch of Alentejo’s reality. This perspective was further extended by the portrayal of the region in the 1940s, as conveyed in Gaimirra, a collection of short stories previously read by the author.

    However, the effort to read the selected books in alignment with the rest of Antunes da Silva’s work led to a reflection on other texts that are part of his journalistic and literary production. For this reason, Ensaios da Imaginação com a Paisagem also explores narratives such as Alentejo É Sangue and A Fábrica, as well as Antunes da Silva's poetry, including Canções do Vento and Rio Degebe, among others. In harmony with the prose and poetry referenced above, we also analyzed his reports on Terras Velhas Semeadas de Novo and Alqueva a Grande Barragem.

    As Antunes da Silva was a voice of constructive criticism toward the Estado Novo regime and Portugal’s young democracy, it was essential from the outset to clarify his political ideology. Understanding the core ideas of the MDP/CDE, the party in which he was an active member, alongside the reading of these reports and diary texts—published after the April 25th Revolution—and the analysis of Notícias do Sul (1976-1981), the newspaper he directed, helped uncover the political and civic ideas embedded in his literature, while also providing a broader contextual framework. The socio-cultural and political-economic landscape of 20th-century Alentejo is thus revealed through the intersection of Antunes da Silva’s perspective with that of other figures interested in the region.

   Always driven by the desire to distinguish Antunes da Silva within the national literary scene, we examined the influences of other writers on his work. A steadfast advocate of the human value of the Alentejo plains and deeply captivated by its sunlit landscape, Antunes da Silva reveals, in his diaries and in some press articles, the words that interweave with his own. It is therefore imperative to compare his regionalist work to that of authors such as Camilo Castelo Branco (As Novelas do Minho) and Alentejo-born writers like Mário Beirão, Fialho de Almeida, Manuel Ribeiro, and Garibaldino de Andrade. The selection of texts and authors was based not only on Antunes da Silva’s own references but also on his efforts to pay tribute to Alentejo’s cultural heritage. In response to this endeavor, and particularly due to Manuel Ribeiro de Pavia, the artist who illustrated some of Antunes da Silva’s books, an appendix was dedicated to the illustrators of the literature under discussion.