On this evening of June 6, 2018, we wish to honor the life and work of professor and writer Adelaide Freitas, an Azorean voice of the foremost magnificence, who made herself clearly heard in everything she taught, created and published, from essays to poetry, with intelligence and a brilliant pen, liberated, always attentive to the voices of the Azorean people, of emigrants, of those who stayed in the islands, of returnees, of those who were born and live in this World of Islands.
To dear Adelaide, dear friend and beloved wife of professor and writer Vamberto Freitas, our tribute is mingled with tears of saudade that stubbornly moisten our faces.
Her voice will never be absent, because it continues to be present and will always surprise us through her published books, where each essay on social or literary subject contains her intelligence, her analytical power, her capacity to persuade, and her knowledge of universalist scope, so well expressed by the Terceiran writer Álamo Oliveira, in January 2013, in his moving article “Adelaide Freitas – the greatness of a smile inside life.”
We wish Vamberto, Adelaide’s family and her friends the comfort of the love and strength of Adelaide the fighter, this admirable woman we had the privilege of knowing.
Her words endure as her Smile throughout the night.
Our deepest condolences.
Lélia Pereira Nunes
Irene Maria Blayer
Florianópolis, Brazil – 11 PM, June 6, 2018
Translators’ note: We add our heartfelt condolences to Vamberto, to Adelaide’s family and to her innumerable friends. The team of Katharine F. Baker, Bobby J. Chamberlain, Ph.D., Reinaldo A Silva, Ph.D., and Emanuel Melo has translated Adelaide’s novel Sorriso por Dentro da Noite into English, and the manuscript is currently in the editing phase by publishers.
