Barnacle Love (Random House, 2008) de Anthony de Sa,  intercepta  o sonho emigrante  com a  desilusão e realidade  amarga da experiência do emigrante açoriano num mundo  onde o  leitor caminha do  isolamento e sossego da ilha ao multiculturalismo e alvoroço da cidade, Toronto.

Decorrendo de experiências em que a vivência do autor está fortemente ancorada, Anthony de Sa caracteriza  sucinta mas sugestivamente o ‘emigrante’, dando-lhe uma feição universalista. Eis um excerto: 

"Fado"

Mateus had stowed away in the hull of one of the White Fleet’s ships almost forty years ago. He had made a place for himself here. At first it had been difficult, a boy lost in an unknown, far away place, not certain of what to do next. Repairing fishing nets had shredded his hands but fed his body. He had grown up on the docks, moved up in a world where there was promise of reward in hard work and perseverance. This was the dream of this land. Manuel wanted it to become his.

"You’re young, Manuel. At twenty-one you have everything ahead of you."

     "Then why do I feel I have nothing?" Manuel wants Mateus to turn and look his way, to answer the question. Instead, he turns the crank and places the album on the turntable. The record wobbles slightly. Amalia’s voice erupts as his eyes urge Manuel to look out the window. . .

"Manuel. Listen to me . . ." It is his erect posture, straight like a mast, that tells him he must listen. . .

"Don’t let the idea," his strained neck stresses this word, "of a dream conquer you, Manuel. If you are going to stay . . . if you are going to fazer uma América, as many of these men say," he makes a tight ball with his fist. "Let this country shape you."

Anthony de Sa, luso-canadiano, é professor de liceu e escritor. De famílias  da Lomba da Maia, ilha de São Miguel, o seu pai emigrou para o Canadá em 1957, e a sua mãe em 1961. Anthony nasceu em Toronto; a sua infância e adolescência decorreram na área conhecida por ‘Little Portugal’.

Anthony De Sa was born in 1966 and grew up in Toronto’s fledgling Portuguese community. Surrounded by his extended family, Anthony De Sa grew to understand the very real tensions of straddling the old world of an Azores  left behind and the new world he faced as a Canadian. It was a struggle that guided him through Toronto’s Little Portugal, a world of colourful houses and labyrinthine back alleys. The Church loomed large, St. Mary’s, and he saw a world where men and women inhabited sharply divided spaces. His short fiction has been published in several North American literary magazines. Barnacle Love is Anthony’s first book and has garnered critical acclaim across Canada. Before it was even published in Canada it was purchased by Publicações Dom Quixote and is expected to be released in the spring of 2009. His novel, Carnival of Desire, slotted for a 2011 release, will be set in 1977, the year a twelve-year-old shoeshine boy named Emanuel Jaques was brutally raped and murdered in Toronto. In all his work, Anthony De Sa captures the innocent dreams, successes and bitter disappointments of the immigrant experience.

Anthony graduated from University of Toronto and did his post-graduate work at Queen’s University. Humber College and Ryerson University laid the foundations for his writing career. But, it is his love of teaching – in particular the craft of writing – that sees him heading the English Department and directing the creative writing program at a high school for the arts. He has been a teacher for eighteen years with the Toronto Catholic District School Board. He is currently working with The Humber School for Writers to develop a writing workshop for young adults, Stringing Words. He lives in Toronto with his wife, Stephanie, and his three sons, Julian, Oliver and Simon.

Irene Maria F. Blayer

04-07-08