The City of Ulysses/ A Cidade de Ulisses
A man and a woman meet and fall in love in Lisbon. Their story, which is also a love story with a city, leads the reader along multiple paths, between myth and History, reality and desire, literature and the visual arts, past and present, the relations between men and women, the civilizational crisis and the need to rethink the world.
“Tourists go in search of places where they can escape from themselves, and at once trade them for others, fleeing ever farther away. Travellers go in search of themselves in other places, and no effort seems too great, no step excessive, so great is their desire to reach their destination. With luck, they manage to find the city they were looking for. At least once in their lives.”
Teolinda’s universe, rendered with exquisite delicacy in a fitting setting: Lisbon, a fatal territory for excessive loves and incurable passions.
— Francisco José Viegas
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One of our finest short-story writers, one of our finest novelists, T.G., exactly 30 years after the memorable publication of The Silence and 15 years after The Tree of Words (a novel which, together with Baía dos Tigres by Pedro Rosa Mendes, stands at the foundation of the new phase of post-Empire Portuguese literature), now brings out The City of Ulysses, a vibrant hymn to the one and many, harmonious and dissonant histories of Lisbon. (…) Lisbon is the great collective character of the novel, the soil from which the lives of Paulo and Cecília draw their meaning.
MIGUEL REAL, JORNAL DE LETRAS, 09/03/2011
The City of Ulysses goes far beyond being merely a novel about Lisbon and the rewriting of the myth of Ulysses. Admirably well written, the text reveals (…) a classical kind of seduction exercised by the nineteenth-century novel, both in the tightly structured plotting of the intrigue and in the construction of the dominant character (…), offering a life lesson with an ethical and social dimension that is communicated intensely, without neglecting what in Literature is always most important: the artistic meaning of what is written. (…) The book tells an intoxicating, all-encompassing love story between Paulo and Cecília (…), and it explores, without any trace of Manichaeism, the controversial dimensions of the themes of Journey, Otherness and Exposure. (…) What Teolinda does is write life.
MARIA ALZIRA SEIXO, JORNAL DE LETRAS, 21/03/2012
The City of Ulysses is a rare and exalted moment in contemporary Portuguese prose. It is an inner journey through Lisbon – a Lisbon reinvented at every step in a writing that is simple because it is erudite, and erudite by the very nature of its expression. It has been years since reading a text of this kind has awakened in me so much happiness and pleasure. And the few words with which I say this are a poor tribute to such a beautiful and moving book. It is a great love story because it is a great novel about people, streets and a city.
BAPTISTA BASTOS, JORNAL DE NEGÓCIOS, 2011
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USA
City of Ulysses, Victoria, TX, Dalkey Archive Press, 2017
Italy
La Città di Ulisse,transl. Alessandra Della Penna, Perugia, Edizioni dell’Urogallo, 2013
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Prémio Ciranda, 2012
Prémio António Quadros, 2013
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A Cidade de Ulisses
Um homem e uma mulher encontram-se e amam-se em Lisboa. A sua história, que é também uma história de amor por uma cidade, levará o leitor a percorrer múltiplos caminhos, entre os mitos e a História, a realidade e o desejo, a literatura e as artes plásticas, o passado e o presente, as relações entre homens e mulheres, a crise civilizacional e a necessidade de repensar o mundo.
«Os turistas vão à procura de lugares para fugirem de si próprios, e logo os trocam por outros e fogem para mais longe. Os viajantes vão à procura de si noutros lugares, e nenhum esforço lhes parece demasiado e nenhum passo excessivo, tão grande é o desejo de chegarem ao seu destino. Com sorte conseguem encontrar a cidade que procuraram. Ao menos uma vez na vida.»
O universo de Teolinda numa extrema delicadeza e num cenário esperado: Lisboa, território fatal para amores excessivos e paixões sem remédio. - Francisco José Viegas