Navigating New Horizons: The Fearless Creativity of Azorean Young Writers

Vamberto Freitas

Diogo Ourique is another exceptional writer for me, apart from all his creativity while in Lisbon and now from the Azores. His first novel, Tirem- me Deste Livro (now translated into English, Let Me out of the Book), is one of Portuguese literature’s most original acts of fiction. Born in the parish of Agualva on Terceira Island, he makes no apologies for returning to his homeland. I can’t tell you enough about my admiration for him and his entire generation. A supreme writer who has multiple geographies as a point of reference, he develops his career as if the sea between us all were only, and it is, a road to the rest of the world. Let Me Out of This Book is about to be released in the United States in English translation, now titled Let Me Out of This Book, by Letras Lavadas and Bruma Publications of the Portuguese Beyond Borders Institute at

California State University, Fresno, and directed by Diniz Borges.

VF- Your first novel, Let Me Out of This Book, published in 2019, was more than a surprise that perversely delighted me. After all, it had to be an Agualvense author who cracked a character's head open in the very first pages. What follows makes these pages more than subversive among all Azorean authors.

DO - The idea was to try and go in with a bang, strictly following that literary rule of trying to capture the reader’s attention from the first pages. With this prologue, I also wanted to set the tone of the work right from the start so that no one would be fooled: this is a heavy book (in terms of what it describes) with blood, victims, and evil deeds. But at the same time, by telling the story of a protagonist who realizes his status as a fictional character, the book itself ends up questioning the reality of everything that happens throughout the plot since it’s all just stories and actions imagined and written by someone else –so did they happen? Perhaps, I’m thinking now; it’s a strategy I’ve invented so that I can press the terror and the macabre at will while at the same time holding the reader’s hand and saying: “Calm down, none of this is real. This isn’t happening. So, anything goes”. This strategy ended up being very useful to me, as it allowed me, in this first literary breath, to experiment freely, to say whatever I wanted, and not to limit myself exclusively to the four walls of a story.

Because that was my motivation from the start and has been throughout everything I’ve written and what I’m yet to write: to go beyond those walls, to “break the fourth wall.” It is packed with many other stories – in literature,cinema, and video games and watch comedy shows and comedy films. For some reason, content such as current political satire shows – mainly in Anglo-Saxon culture, which ends up influencing the whole world – which holds up a mirror, through humor, to what is happening around us, is so popular and audience leaders.

– that describe people who wake up from their reality and realize that the world around them isn’t real, who break that fourth wall and speak to the public. Many of us have imagined ourselves in different skins and different lives; we’ve questioned our existence. We try to deconstruct the reality around us, analyzing it in parts, questioning dogmas, and refuting certainties. That’s what I find most interesting about art: deconstruction. Studying and getting to know the rules well so that, from there, we can dismantle them, put them in a corner, and even make fun of them.

Another famous literary rule is that you should write what you would like to read. Well, I always like to read chaos—but structured chaos that knows the rules— chaos that knows how to be chaos.

VF- Your career in Lisbon has been glittering as a comedian and in manyother activities linked to the arts and communication. How did you get here?

DO- I’ve always had a passion for humor, but I’d hardly consider myself a humorist or comedian – maybe one day, with a good dose of self- confidence and a few tranquilizers in my stomach before I go on stage. I try to incorporate humor into a lot of what I do because, in my opinion,laughter is the easiest way to get a message across or explain our points of view. Perhaps it’s again because of this need I’ve always felt for constant deconstruction – or maybe this need has been fueled by humor.

Humor has a significant role in deconstructing and influencing opinions, even though those who practice it professionally often try to avoid thisresponsibility, claiming that they are just jokes. But the truth is, and we know it: humor is good for us and annoys dictators. For that reason alone, I think it’s valuable.’

VF-You belong to a generation of writers I admire, and I think I've made that clear in the pages of Açoriano Oriental. When going to study on the mainland and staying there was a kind of glory before the others who stayed, what made you return to the Azores and pursue your career from here?

DO - Not only have we noted your interest as a literary critic in the most recent generations of Azorean writers, but we can only thank him for this spotlight that he constantly points out to us, guiding our path. It’s great to feel seen, appreciated, and recognized by people who are attentive to our culture and have already contributed much to it.

Because humor is all of these things: it’s deconstruction, it’s questioning, it’s digging to find the unexpected, the absurd. That’s why we like to listen to jokes, read chronicles and funny stories,

Studying on the mainland, going abroad, and getting to know the overseas world is familiar to many islanders, regardless of their chosen professional field. There is a desire for discovery, to get to know the metropolises, and to be a great cosmopolitan. But cosmopolitanism can do nothing about the “Longing for Home.” Metropolises gradually lose fun, charm, and novelty – that siren song. They become the hamster wheel where we are trapped on commutes and routine days. We begin to appreciate the paradoxical freedom that the islands guarantee us since they are surrounded by sea – but they are also full of everything that is ours. They are full of what inspires us, the fresh air that nourishes us, the calm that – in our case – allows us to write, to think, to have ideas, to take it easy, not having a subway to catch or a highway to cross at rush hour to take a quick dip in distant, crowded beaches and return to a rented apartment in a complex that will never be ours.

That’s another increasingly pressing issue. I believe many of us still want to stay in the metropolis and the ecstasy of the city. But being cosmopolitan is no longer in the Portuguese pocket. Often, returning is the most economical and, lulled by the magnetism of the motherland, definitive solution.

I find myself somewhat in the middle of these two scenarios. Encouraged by a global pandemic, I returned to my homeland, and here I’ve been, watering the roots that never dried up. I stopped thinking about metropolises because I no longer felt like paying what they charged me financially or regarding quality of life. I stopped seeing the island as a port of departure to discover new worlds, and now I see it as a haven with so much still to accomplish. Here, I can see the consequences of my actions, understand the influence of what I do, and the effects of my work. The hamster wheel is not just a wheel; it has curves and countercurves, places to rest and picnic, service stations, and halts. If the opportunities aren’t there, we try to create them. And if we still can’t, then sure, let’s go abroad, be cosmopolitan, without fear – but without ever forgetting the place, we’ll probably always return to our islands, where we can live rather than exist.

Vamberto Freitas is the Azore’s most respected literary critic, with a body of literary criticism that is truly impressive. The Azores owes much to Vamberto Freitas.

This interview was first published in Portuguese in Açoriano Oriental on the literary page BorderCrossings.

Translated to English by Diniz Borges