Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma

Miguel Torga (1907-1995)

Author(s): Gerald M. Moser
Source: World Literature Today, Vol. 71, No. 1 (Winter, 1997), p. 99
Published by: Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40152573
Accessed: 21-02-2016 19:36 UTC

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Miguel Torga (1907-1995)
By GERALDM. MOSER In January1995 Portu-
gal lost trie strongest,
most outspoken, most
dramatic,and at the same time eminentlysensitive
andmost lyricalof its livingwriters,MiguelTorga.He
was a man of uncompromising,solid character,with
facialfeaturesthat were as if hewn out of the granite
rockof his nativehighlands,the provinceof Tras-os-
Montes,up in the Northeastof his belovedbut never
idolizedcountry.
Born Adolfo Correiada Rocha in 1907, of peas-
ant stock, in the village of Sao Martinhode Anta,
east of Vila Real, he was a mere teenagerwhen he
had to leave his homelandto go to work on a farm
in the backlandsof Minas Gerais, Brazil.That was
in 1920. Having spent five years in Brazil, he re-
turned to Portugal.He was able to study medicine
at the ancientUniversityof Coimbrain centralPor-
tugal. Coimbrabecamehis second home for life, the
place wherehe was to practiceas a physician.While
still a universitystudent, he began to write poetry.
For a short time he joined a group that published
the journalPresenga,one of whose contributorswas
FernandoPessoa.
In 1928 Torga publishedhis first (and laterwith-
drawn) collection of poems, Ansiedade(Anxiety) a
title expressinghis recurrentdark moods. In 1930
he quit the Presengagroup, assertinghis incompati-
bility with its highbrowways. Rather,he presented
himself as an independent, unbending "Iberian"
man of the mountains, close to nature, frank and
honest in dealing with people, and faithful to his
peasant origins. His writings faithfully reflect the
man, as do the straightforward titles of his principal
works,the story collectionsBichos(1940), Montan-
ha (1941), and Novos Contosda Montanha(1944)
and, besides Ansiedade,the poetry volumes Orfeu
Rebelde(1958) sndAlguns Poemas Ibericos(1952).
In 1952 Torga visited Brazil, which stirred up
emotions he tried to convey on certain pages of
Tragode Unido(1955), a collection of talks and es-
says, and in Didrio VII (1956). The best introduc-
tion to his thoughts, feelings, and reactions to the
times through which he lived remain the fourteen
Gerald M. Moser is ProfessorEmeritusof Spanishand Por-
tugueseat PennsylvaniaStateUnviersityand the authorof Essays
in Portuguese-AfricanLiterature(1969), Changing Africa: The First
LiteraryGenerationof IndependentCape Verde(1992), and several
bibliographiesof lusophone African literature (1970, 1983,
1993).
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volumes of his journal, the Diario, in which prose
and poetry alternate. They were issued between
1941 and 1967. He also published talks, dramas,
and prose sketches.
I had the good fortune to be received twice by
Torga. Each time he made a profound impression
on me as both a human being and a remarkablelit-
eraryfigure.Our firstmeetingwas in 1960 in Coim-
bra, where my wife and I had gone on an excursion
from Lisbon. One evening, at a performance of
three farces of Professor Paulo Quintela's student
theater at the Teatro Avenida, we were introduced
to Torga and his Belgian wife, the teacher Andree
CrabbeTorga. Torga asked me to look him up at
his office the next day. So, the next afternoon I
walked to the office of Dr. Adolfo Rocha, Torga's
alterego, on the second floor of an old house facing
the centralsquare.
The second visit took place in Lisbon in 1972.
We went to see Miguel Torga on June 30, at the
Hopital de Saint-Louis-des-Francaisin Lisbon's
"Bairro Alto," where he was recovering from
prostatesurgery."In a hospitaland in jail one finds
out who one's friendsare,"he remarked,alludingto
his having been jailed by Salazar's regime about
1939. He read us some lines from a letter by a lady
who reproachedhim for not having told her about
his operation. Above all, he spoke with fatherly
pride about Clara, his sixteen-year-olddaughter,
and her successes as a student. Then he asked me
point-blank:"Ainda lutando pela lingua portugue-
sa?"- Still fightingfor the Portugueselanguage?
He heartilyagreedwith me that an excursionwe
had planned to Tras-os-Montes was an excellent
idea, and he traceda rapid,detailedmap for us on a
slip of paper. (The map got lost somehow, but An-
dree, his wife, retracedit obligingly.)He regretted
that he could not be in Sao Martinhode Anta to re-
ceive us and take us to one of his favoritespots, Sao
Leonardode Galafura,high abovethe RiverDouro.
A few of Torga's books have been translated.Of
his poetry,only PoemasIbericoshas been, into Span-
ish. His prose has faredbetter.Bichoscan be read in
Spanish,English, Romanian,French,Japanese,and
Serbo-Croatian;Pedraslavradasin French; Vindima
in German; and all of A Criagdodo Mundo in
Frenchand Spanish.NovosContosda Montanhawas
translatedinto Englishas TalesfromtheMountainby
Ivana Carlson (Q.E.D. Press, 1991). The Didrios
and the play O Paraisoare availablein French.
Pennsylvania State University