It is an ode to love from Abraão Vicente to his wife and a different perspective of Cape Verdean society. "I have no merit of being daring, or being a warrior. The book is born from the conquest of Lura, who is my wife, because it was difficult and I had to write many love poems and it is also about Green Cape which is a young country, where we take resolutions as something dramatic, because is a society that always wants to change", as the author said.
Tell me about the letters to Lura.
Abraão Vicente: Are letters and poems to Lura, but there are other parts that are thematic poems unrelated to the death, are of poetic construction linked to Green Cape, the land, ideological issues and the everyday struggle and that has an aesthetic completely different from the lyrical component that is asked in love letters and poems dedicated to someone you love.
In interviews you state often this is a more mature book in poetic terms.
AV: What I said is that it is poetically mature, is better. It is written with more patience, the poems were more worked "suddenly the night", which is a very small edition. I am currently working on two more books of poems, specific themes, with texts related to this very Cape Verdean dialectic, the mestizo, black or white. The influence of our culture in the way we behaved and the diaspora, their influence on our writing which is huge. Recently I finished a novel and will be published next year in the second half, in Portugal, as it is passed in Lisbon.
Another curious fact about this book is that it was first published in e-book as a way to protest related to copyright.
AV: There is no legislation on copyright in Green Cape, being my fifth book I noticed that I am a writer who edited much always at the expense of my own means, or with very small publishers, cannot reach the general public as large publishers do. I decided to not make the investment thinking of the commercial return of the book and the e-book is practical, free, easily accessible anywhere in the world and was a way to give my runoff need to be read. Here the bet was to define and promote my work much more than earn thousands. Make the book free of charge and a way for people to recognize or not the quality of what I do as an author.
Cape Verdeans like their poets?
AV: Yes, Green Cape is a country almost always directed by poets. Our president at the moment is a poet, Jorge Carlos Fonseca. The current minister of culture is also a writer and this means that all our teaching is geared for new authors, the new start we call them. Green Cape in its literary tradition is much more poets than prosers.
The islet is more prone to poetry?
AV: Yes, especially for poetry. It is the typical dilemma of being born with the clarity that needs to be verbalized, staying but wanting to get away, or having to leave wanting to stay. What drives us as people is almost an existential drama, we have a country with 10 islands, each of which is a completely different nation, is a huge effort to move in our territory and the diaspora eventually is the home to more people of Green Cape and therefore you are born almost as a poet (laughs).
