Editor's note
A Big Step for Macau
A literary festival in a city with almost no writers or literary traditions is a daunting task, almost like trying to water a desert. And yet, what Macau CLOSER publisher Ricardo Pinto is organizing at the end of this month might become the cultural equivalent of the Forum for Economic and Trade Cooperation between China and Portuguese-speaking Countries, an organization that gathers China and the seven Portuguese-speaking countries in the world to develop economic exchanges among them. Money usually speaks louder than culture and arts, and in fact the Forum was a clever idea to give a significant role to Macau in the post handover period and make it relevant at a time when Beijing was, is and will continue to be keen on increasing its relationship with commodity-rich countries like Angola and Brazil.
Culture and specifically literature are not obvious moneymakers, but in a world
where money is as uncertain as the weather in typhoon season, cultural values are gaining new strength and should be one valid option for Macau besides gaming and tourism. During the final years of the Portuguese administration of Macau, there was a political expression that became an almost nauseating cliché – "Macau, platform of cultures" – and yet, one could not see clearly its materialization in specific events. Certainly there was a great offer of exhibitions, festivals and talks of Portuguese speaking artists, historians, musicians and writers. But the link with Chinese culture and art was somehow missing in the so-called platform. The Chinese community would organize its cultural events on its own, often with government subsidies, but with no real, active and energetic involvement of the Portuguese-speaking community. The aims of the upcoming festival are much more ambitious, wanting to establish a common ground for Portuguese-speaking (aka Lusophone) and Chinese writers to share experiences and discuss values, many of them universal, but others related to the Portuguese diaspora. It remains to
be seen what kind of bridges can be established between personalities with such diverse backgrounds (see our Closer Look section to learn about the participants). But this uncertainty is perhaps the most exciting challenge of this event, which embraces Lusophone and Chinese writers, artists and musicians, as the organizers understand literature here as a broad concept, with musical and visual tones.
Finally the festival will pay homage to figures like Camilo Pessanha, Henrique de Senna Fernandes and Deolinda da Conceição, among others who throughout the 20th century transported Macau, its people, events, emotions and feelings to perennial fictional pages. These writers might be just a few, but Macau past and present would be much poorer without them.