Joao-Roque Literary Journal est. 2017

By R. Benedito Ferrao

The illustrated book The Story of Janakye Bai (Goa 1556, 2026) chronicles a tale that has been passed down over several generations amongst Velip people, one of Goa’s Indigenous communities. The story revolves around Janakye Bai, a girl who chooses to run away from home rather than resign herself to a fate she refuses to accept. This book appears in two editions, one in Velip Konkani and the other in English. Vithai Zaraunker, a member of the Velip community and an Assistant Professor of Women’s Studies at the D. D. Kosambi School of Social Sciences and Behavioural Studies at Goa University, envisioned this book project…

By Ava Sherry

I had been drawn to R. Benedito Ferrão and Vamona Navelcar’s The Destination is the Journey, initially because it wasn’t obvious in its positioning. It felt almost like a puzzle, except with every answer found, another layer of depth revealed itself. The Destination is The Journey forms part of R. Benedito Ferrão’s edited book, Goa/Portugal/Mozambique: The Many Lives of Vamona Navelcar (2017) which is about a Goan artist – Navelcar (1929-2021) – whose life and identity, due to colonial forces, became dispersed across the boundaries of Africa, Asia, and Europe.

By Suneeta Peres da Costa

I wander in the dark among the rooms in my
father’s house, touching talismans for blessings
and luck. Graffiti of old wounds cover the walls;
the ceiling sags and there are places where the
limestone is pocked and shell-shocked. We are
on land but the water is rising.

By Ashwani Kumar

I hear Columbus is in the city —
a sailor of ocean blue,
spilling secrets of his adventures to storm-starved skies.

Bells ringing, angels singing at traffic lights.
Persian pomegranate seeds scattered along the streets,
each a crimson promise of seers and saints.

Review by Michelle Mendonca Bambawale

Tale of Two Kitchens: A Culinary Journey through Cochin & Goa (Books etc., 2026), is a charming, all-colour tribute to the author’s life in food. Crescentia (Cres) Scolt Fernandes is an Anglo-Indian (of Portuguese and Dutch descent) chef and restaurateur, her husband Chrys is of Goan descent from Divar. She writes this memoir with recipes that document her history through two cultures on the same coast—Kerala and Goa.

Review by Selma Carvalho

Imagine the fear that pervaded Goa in the December of 1961. At least one section of Goan society knew with absolute certainty that their lives would change forever. It sometimes amuses me when we speak of Goan identity and its imminent loss. Goa has always had a plurality of identities coexisting. The culture of the Konkani speaking agriculturist mundkar in rural Goa is as divorced from the Portuguese-speaking Goan of literary societies and leisure associations as it was from the Marathi speaking Goan of the hinterland.

Review by Michelle Mendonca Bambawale

During the pandemic, Sharbelle discovered a shoe box tied in a faded red satin ribbon stuffed with a few of her parents’ letters to each other. The paper was frail, the handwriting faded, but the box had survived seventy years, shifting times and places, harsh Goan monsoons and a termite infestation. Reading them, Sharbelle learned about her parents lives before they had even met each other. She says in the Prologue, “of the hundreds of letters Mum Marge wrote over the span of six years, only fifty or so survived the termites’ assault. Of Dad Rodrigos’ only three.”