The new book by writer Maria do Vale Cartaxo, entitled “On the Upward Train – Tales and Pending Accounts”, will be released this Friday, November 30th, at 18 pm, at the Municipal Library of Portimão.
Edited by Colibri, the book includes eight short stories and a novel. The presentation of the work, which is part of the Portimão City Day commemorations program, will be in charge of José Gameiro, scientific director of the Portimão Museum, and of Elisabete Rodrigues, director of Sul Informação.
This is the seventh book of the writer born in Portimão, after «A Viagem» (2000), «O Legado de Mrs. Baker» (2003), «Three logbooks on a shipwreck route» (2003), «The seventh day” (2006), “Not the day” (2008) and “I used to be from here” (2017).
The title of his seventh work (“On the Descending Train”) is also that of the novel with which the book closes, with a golden key. A title based on Fernando Pessoa's poem (and José Afonso's song) «No Comboio Descendente». To know how all this is articulated (and if it is articulated) it is necessary to go to the presentation of the book and, above all, read it.
Maria do Vale Cartaxo, born in Portimão, a girl and girl left her parents' house to study at the Liceu de Faro and at the University of Lisbon, and soon he felt the urge to leave his homeland and go further – not settling for little, he went around the world and sailed through the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific oceans and other seas.
Doing the entire sea route of the discovering ancestors, he circled the African continent through the Cape of Good Hope, with stops in Senegal, South Africa and Kenya, docked in Bombay, anchored in Ceylon, arrived in Malacca, sailed to Macau, traveled through Taiwan and landed in Nagasaki, Japan.
On two wheels, riding a motorbike with her husband Christopher Gosden, an Englishman also thirsty for adventure, he traveled thousands of kilometers from Singapore, through Malaysia and Thailand, to Laos and Cambodia.
Afterwards, they lived and traveled overland for a year and a half, in a small VW “loaf bread” caravan, throughout the American continent, from Canada to Chile, crossing Argentina and settling in Brazil.
Beyond all the places she has seen on four continents, from the Alps to the Andes, from the Canadian glaciers to the Atacama Desert and the Amazon rainforest, the author has lived in Salzburg, Colombo, Bangkok, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Porto Alegre and Rio de Janeiro , where she worked in diplomatic missions, multinational companies, schools and as a translator freelance.
After returning to his homeland, he took up residence near Alvor, overlooking the sea he loves so much.
She was the first recipient of the Manuel Teixeira Gomes Literary Prize, instituted by the Municipality of Portimão, in 1999, with the short story The trip, and, after that, she was also awarded in 2002 with the soap opera Mrs. Baker's Legacy, and, in 2006, with the short story The seventh day.
He also published the novels Three Logs on Shipwreck Route, on 2003, not the day, in 2008, and I used to be from hereIn 2017.
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