The Luso-American Foundation, the Regional Office for Culture of the Government of the Autonomous the Azores, and the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Center for Portuguese Studies and Culture announce the colloquium “Portugal na América: A Conversation with Two Portuguese-American Writers and an Historian,” that will take place at:
 
1) the Luso-American Foundation in Lisbon on October 26, 2010 at 6 p.m.,
2) at the Palacete Silveira e Paulo, in Angra do Heroísmo on October 27 at 6:15 p.m., and
3) at the Biblioteca Pública e Arquivo Regional on the October 28 at 5 p.m.

The event in Lisbon is co-sponsored by EDEL Press, publisher of the book series “Portugal na América,” whose editor Rui Zink. Frank X. Gaspar and Katherine Vaz, the two most prominent Portuguese-American authors today, will highlight the program, along with the historian Donald Warrin of the University of California, Berkeley.
 Gaspar and Vaz will discuss their latest books, the novel Stealing Fátima and Our Lady of the Artichokes and Other Portuguese-American Stories, respectively. The session in Lisbon will conclude with the launching of Warrin’s So Ends This Day: The Portuguese in American Whaling, 1765-1927.
The two sessions in the Azores will conclude with the launching of Imaginários Luso-Americanos e Açorianos: Do Outro lado do Espelho, by Vamberto Freitas of the University of the Açores.
At each of the three locations there will be on exhibit and for sale a collection of books on the Portuguese-American experience, including the entire collection of the Portuguese in the Americas Series. These works, comprised of imaginative literature and essay, depict, explore, discuss, criticize, celebrate and ponder the common heritage of the Portuguese-American experience.

Frank Sousa
University of Massachusetts Dartmouth