Giovanni Pontiero
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Giovanni Pontiero
Giovanni Pontiero (10 February 1932 – 10 February 1996) was a Scots-Italian scholar and translator of Portuguese fiction. Most notably, he translated the works of José Saramago and Clarice Lispector, two celebrated names in Portuguese-language literature. Life Born and raised in Glasgow, after secondary school Pontiero went into seminary at Biggar and later at Rimini, Italy, but at age 24 decided to abdicate from a religious career. He graduated from the university of Glasgow in 1960 and completed his PhD while in Brazil at Universidade Federal de Paraíba, returning to Manchester to defend his thesis on Manuel Bandeira. In 1962 he was appointed lecturer in Latin American studies at Manchester. He was later promoted to senior lecturer and finally Reader in Latin-American Literature in the Victoria University of Manchester until his retirement in 1995. Ponteiro had a lifelong interest in the theatre, in particular the work of the great Italian actress Eleonora Duse (1858– ...
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Portuguese Language
Portuguese ( or, in full, ) is a western Romance language of the Indo-European language family, originating in the Iberian Peninsula of Europe. It is an official language of Portugal, Brazil, Cape Verde, Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau and São Tomé and Príncipe, while having co-official language status in East Timor, Equatorial Guinea, and Macau. A Portuguese-speaking person or nation is referred to as " Lusophone" (). As the result of expansion during colonial times, a cultural presence of Portuguese speakers is also found around the world. Portuguese is part of the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several dialects of Vulgar Latin in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia and the County of Portugal, and has kept some Celtic phonology in its lexicon. With approximately 250 million native speakers and 24 million L2 (second language) speakers, Portuguese has approximately 274 million total speakers. It is usually listed as the sixth-most spoken language, the third-most sp ...
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The Lives Of Things
''The Lives of Things'' is a short story collection by Portuguese novelist and Nobel-prize winner Jose Saramago. It was originally published in 1978 in Portuguese under the title '' Objecto Quasi''. This article refers to the English translation by Giovanni Pontiero, published by Verso in 2012. Plot Several of the stories foreground an inanimate object which is pivotal in historical events or human consciousness. "Chair" is about a mahogany chair which is slowly rotted from within by several generations of anobium though the rot is invisible from the outside. As a consequence of this rot, the chair collapses underneath an unnamed dictator who is identified as former Portuguese Prime Minister António de Oliveira Salazar by the book's translator. In "Reflux," an unnamed king has such a fear of death that he cannot bear the sight of a funeral procession, grave stones, or black mourning clothes. So he commissions the building of a giant cemetery with high walls in the center of th ...
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Blindness
Visual impairment, also known as vision impairment, is a medical definition primarily measured based on an individual's better eye visual acuity; in the absence of treatment such as correctable eyewear, assistive devices, and medical treatment– visual impairment may cause the individual difficulties with normal daily tasks including reading and walking. Low vision is a functional definition of visual impairment that is chronic, uncorrectable with treatment or correctable lenses, and impacts daily living. As such low vision can be used as a disability metric and varies based on an individual's experience, environmental demands, accommodations, and access to services. The American Academy of Ophthalmology defines visual impairment as the best-corrected visual acuity of less than 20/40 in the better eye, and the World Health Organization defines it as a presenting acuity of less than 6/12 in the better eye. The term blindness is used for complete or nearly complete vision loss. In ...
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The History Of The Siege Of Lisbon
''The History of the Siege of Lisbon'' ( pt, História do Cerco de Lisboa) is a novel by Portuguese author José Saramago, first published in 1989. It tells the story of a proofreader and the story of the Siege of Lisbon as it both is and is not told in the book he is charged with correcting. It discusses many themes including language, history and historiography, and war in the medieval world. In the novel Saramago challenges the common one-dimensional interpretations of historical events that only focuses on kings and battles and ask for a more pluralistic perspective that include individual motives and behaviour and take account of the role of chance in shaping history.Daniel R. Schwarz "Saramago's ''The History of the Siege of Lisbon'' (1989)" ''Reading the Modern European Novel since 1900'' John Wiley & Sons 2018 Plot summary Raimundo Silva, assigned to correct a book entitled ''The History of Siege of Lisbon'' by his publishing house, decides to alter the meaning of a cru ...
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Manual Of Painting And Calligraphy
''Manual of Painting and Calligraphy'' (Portuguese: ''Manual de Pintura e Caligrafia'') is a novel by Nobel Prize-winning author José Saramago. It was first published in 1977. An English translation by Giovanni Pontiero Giovanni Pontiero (10 February 1932 – 10 February 1996) was a Scots-Italian scholar and translator of Portuguese fiction. Most notably, he translated the works of José Saramago and Clarice Lispector, two celebrated names in Portuguese-language ... was published in 1993. The plot of the novel involves H., who paints the industrialist S. and has an affair with his secretary. References Novels by José Saramago 1977 novels 20th-century Portuguese novels Portuguese-language novels {{1970s-novel-stub ...
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The Stone Raft
''The Stone Raft'' ( pt, A Jangada de Pedra) is a novel by Portuguese writer José Saramago. It was written in 1986, and was translated into English by Giovanni Pontiero in 1994. The premise of the novel is that the Iberian Peninsula has broken off the European continent and is floating freely in the Atlantic Ocean; bureaucrats around the world are forced to deal with the traumatic effects, while five characters from across Portugal and Spain are drawn ever closer to one another, embarking on a journey within the peninsula as the landmass journeys itself. A Spanish-language film version entitled ''La Balsa de Piedra'' was released in 2002. A Dutch, Spanish and Portuguese co-production, it was directed by Dutch director George Sluizer. In 2021 it came to light that many lyrics of singer-songwriter Noel Gallagher of Oasis In ecology, an oasis (; ) is a fertile area of a desert or semi-desert environment'ksar''with its surrounding feeding source, the palm grove, within a relat ...
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The Gospel According To Jesus Christ
''The Gospel According to Jesus Christ'' (original title: ''O Evangelho Segundo Jesus Cristo'', 1991) is a novel by the Portuguese author José Saramago. It is a fictional re-telling of Jesus Christ's life, depicting him as a flawed, humanised character with passions and doubts. The novel proved controversial, especially among the Roman Catholic Church, accusing Saramago of having a "substantially anti-religious vision". It was praised by other critics as a "deeply philosophical, provocative and compelling work". Plot introduction This book re-imagines the life of Jesus Christ, using the events depicted in the canonical gospels as a scaffold on which to construct its story. It does not follow the chronology of the life of Jesus Christ found in the New Testament. It places far greater emphasis on the earlier part of Jesus's life than the canonical gospels do. Plot summary The book begins with Jesus's conception by Mary and Joseph, in the spiritual presence of God. Jesus's b ...
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The Year Of The Death Of Ricardo Reis
''The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis'' (in Portuguese: ''O Ano da Morte de Ricardo Reis'') is a 1984 novel by the Portuguese novelist José Saramago, the winner of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Literature. The book chronicles the final year in the life of the title character, Ricardo Reis, one of the many heteronyms used by the Portuguese writer Fernando Pessoa. In the novel, Ricardo Reis returns to Lisbon from Brazil, upon catching wind of Pessoa's death. While there, he chooses not to resume practicing medicine, but rather takes up residence in a hotel, where he wastes his days reading newspapers and wandering the streets of Lisbon. The novel was translated into English by Giovanni Pontiero in 1991 and won the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize. Themes The novel addresses several powerful literary themes, though mostly indirectly. For instance, Reis reads of the events leading to the Spanish Civil War, and he sees floods of Spanish immigrants arrive in Lisbon seeking refuge, b ...
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Baltasar And Blimunda
''Baltasar and Blimunda'' ( pt, Memorial do Convento, 1982) is a novel by the Nobel Prize-winning Portuguese author José Saramago. It is an 18th-century love story intertwined with the construction of the Convent of Mafra, now one of Portugal's chief tourist attractions, as a background. Two young lovers interact naturally with historical characters including the composer and harpsichordist Domenico Scarlatti and the priest Bartolomeu de Gusmão, recognized today as an aviation pioneer, all in the shadow of the Inquisition. The lovers are always at center stage wrapped in Saramago's language, which ranges from short simple sentences to surrealistic, unpunctuated paragraphs that help to intensify both the action and the setting. The book served as the basis for the opera ''Blimunda'' (1990), composed by Azio Corghi. Critical reception "Much reverberates in memory after reading this enchanting novel, but most of all the love story which soars over the rest of the action like a fl ...
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University Of Manchester
, mottoeng = Knowledge, Wisdom, Humanity , established = 2004 – University of Manchester Predecessor institutions: 1956 – UMIST (as university college; university 1994) 1904 – Victoria University of Manchester 1880 – Victoria University 1851 – Owens College 1824 – Manchester Mechanics' Institute , endowment = £242.2 million (2021) , budget = £1.10 billion (2020–21) , chancellor = Nazir Afzal (from August 2022) , head_label = President and vice-chancellor , head = Nancy Rothwell , academic_staff = 5,150 (2020) , total_staff = 12,920 (2021) , students = 40,485 (2021) , undergrad = () , postgrad = () , city = Manchester , country = England, United Kingdom , campus = Urban and suburban , colours = Manchester Purple Manchester Yellow , free_label = Scarf , free = , website = , logo = UniOfManchesterLogo.svg , affiliations = Universities Research Association Sutton 30 Russell Group EUA N8 Group NWUA ACUUniversities UK The Universit ...
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John Rylands Library
The John Rylands Research Institute and Library is a late-Victorian neo-Gothic building on Deansgate in Manchester, England. It is part of the University of Manchester. The library, which opened to the public in 1900, was founded by Enriqueta Augustina Rylands in memory of her husband, John Rylands. It became part of the university in 1972, and now houses the majority of the Special Collections of The University of Manchester Library, the third largest academic library in the United Kingdom. Special collections built up by both libraries were progressively concentrated in the Deansgate building. The special collections, believed to be among the largest in the United Kingdom, include medieval illuminated manuscripts and examples of early European printing, including a Gutenberg Bible, the second largest collection of printing by William Caxton, and the most extensive collection of the editions of the Aldine Press of Venice. The Rylands Library Papyrus P52 has a claim to be t ...
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