Atlantic vocation: Manuel António Pina's Os Piratas

Abstract

Bearing in mind that the search for and the affirmation of a national identity entail the sharing of myths, legends and common memories, in which literature plays a seminal role, this paper will attempt a reading of Manuel António Pina’s Os Piratas [The Pirates] (1986/2003) by means of the consideration of how these shared references function. This story, published for the first time in 1986 and later adapted for the theatre, has also been translated into Danish as Soroverne (1990, Copenhagen: Skovlaenge Forlaget), and is one of the most representative works in Pina’s oeuvre. In the novella Os Piratas, elements that are part of the Portuguese historical and literary memory are fictionalised, including topics such as the Atlantic vocation of the nation, maritime adventures, the dangers of piracy, shipwrecks, male heroism, female loneliness and male absence, and the narrativisation of the voyage. The text accordingly requires a range of intertextual readings in order to deal with this intersection of history and fantasy: there are frequent citations of legends and myths as well as subtle indications of Portuguese geography and history, and both aspects are integral to the construction of the narrative.