By Selma Carvalho
Issue no 25
Devi’s writing is an exquisite capture of mid-century Goan society, mores and landscape. The detailed descriptions of the houses and households in particular are of interest for the sheer opulence they conjure up, a gilded age indeed which faded far too soon, and it is easy to see why for so many Goans, there persists a saudade for a paradise lost.
By Paul Melo e Castro
Issue no. 12
Had anything been published in Goa in Portuguese? I’d never heard of anything. But after a little rummaging about I discovered in my own university library a copy of Vimala Devi and Manuel de Seabra’s A Literatura Indo-Portuguesa, a two-volume essay and anthology on Goan writing. If Goa’s literary heritage in Portuguese survives, and if it is still an object of study today, it’s in large measure down to Devi and Seabra’s efforts.
