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Book “Young Johnny, Lisboa & Luanda Anos 60” seeks memories of old times

The book “Young Johnny, Lisboa & Luanda Anos 60”, by João van Zeller, is presented this Wednesday at the Hotel Palácio, in Estoril, on the outskirts of Lisbon, a work of memories "against a schematic vision of History", says Marcello Mathias, who prefaces it.

: João van Zeller (Foto: Igor Martins/Global Imagens)
João van Zeller (Foto: Igor Martins/Global Imagens)  

The presentation session, at 6 pm, will be attended by former Portuguese Minister of Education Eduardo Marçal Grilo, current curator of the Francisco Manuel dos Santos Foundation, diplomat Marcello Duarte Mathias and journalist Henrique Monteiro, author of the novel "Papael Partdo" (2002) .

"Young Johnny, Lisboa & Luanda Anos 60" is a memoir of a man connected to the media, who was part of the founding nucleus of TVI, being "a portrait of a vanished Portugal. Already forgotten by many who were contemporaries, and ignored by millions of other Portuguese", writes the diplomat Marcello Duarte Mathias in the preface to the work.

"A Portugal prior to the 25th of April [1974], the times of decolonization and returnees, the revolution and the conquest of democracy, our entry into the European Communities", emphasizes the diplomat, "the reading of another Portugal".

If the title refers to the Angolan capital, its author, born in Porto, as it proudly attests to - "Northern and Porto native as I have always been" -, in these memoirs it echoes "some innocent nocturnal wanderings of that time, namely, between Estoril and Cascais, from Galito to Caixote, without forgetting the Estribinho towards Birre [on the outskirts of Cascais], where you would eat two fried eggs and a beer, almost at dawn...!" writes Marcello Mathias.

With a degree in Law from the University of Lisbon, João van Zeller went to Luanda as director of the Angola Information and Tourism Center (CITA), coming directly from the Foreign Press section of the National Information Secretariat (SNI), then headed by César Moreira Baptista, who later became Minister of the Interior, functions he performed on April 25, 1974, in the structure of the dictatorial regime.

This position in the capital of the then Province of Angola was a "privileged observation post that will give him access to everything that matters to see and know", writes Mathias.

According to the diplomat, "Angola immediately arouses in him, as if on the surface, enthusiasm and fascination. More than a rupture, a discovery! Because everything around him is new and challenging: the magnificence of the landscapes, forests and deserts; the smells, perfumes and flavors; the fruit for sale in the markets; the cordiality of the people, the language of affection, the songs and rhythms of life; the Snipes World Cup in Luanda; the women and the colorful cloths that the wear".

In van Zeller's words, "Angola was so improbable, so full of promise, so beautiful, even infinite, that I felt I was never really getting to its core."

Angola's war for independence, also known as the armed liberation struggle, began in February 1961.

João van Zeller traveled to Brazil, between the end of 1969 and the beginning of 1970, where he met the writer with Jorge Amado.

In Mathias' opinion, Brazil "provokes [João van Zeller] the same telluric osmosis of joy, since deep down it is the same universe, rich in the same similarities and imbalances. Portuguese Africa and Brazil, a carefree way of living without urgencies, a certain way of being after all, an inheritance that is, simultaneously, difference and convergence".

According to the diplomat, "these memories [of van Zeller] have the merit of restoring to us a past that we must not let die, as it was part of the adventurous and emotional heritage of generations of compatriots who found their raison d'être in Africa and who lived there and died."

This book, stresses the diplomat, aims to "record what matters to safeguard (rescue, it would be more exact), give testimony, bring to the surface the reminiscences of a life or a generation, tracing their portrait and paths".

"It is these coordinates that mark these hundreds of pages and give it, between the subject and its narrative, the intimate truth of the text, its cathartic function. Against forgetting. Against the petrification of memory. Against a schematic view of History. Against the disappearance of everything around us. This is the secret ambition of what is written here. And, all in all, its best and most grateful lesson."

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