LibriVOX is a database which our staff has been following since its departure in 2005, and we believe that it deserves more attention. “Acoustical liberation of books in the public domain” is the humble tagline scrawled across the top of the LibriVOX website. You can also volunteer to recite books from the archive, and have your contribution available to listeners.
After hours of researching some of our favorite works, we came across the poems and sonnets of Fernando Pessoa —read by the archives volunteers, no less. An absolute treasure. These are the small victories we should be celebrating; the work which our people conduct. This is where the internet matters most; as a resource for educational purposes, not the promoting of globalized vanity and class hierarchy. When will we ever learn? Furthering ones educations begins with Fernando Pessoa.
LISTEN TO THE PESSOA AUDIO ARCHIVES
Fernando Pessoa is an essential figure —the Portuguese poet, writer, literary critic, translator, publisher and philosopher has been described as one of the most significant literary figures of the 20th century. If you know his work, you know his life…Pessoa lost his father, due to tuberculosis, when he was 5 years old. His work became recognized after his own death, on November 30th 1935, at the age of 47.
“We don’t even know if what ends with daylight terminates in us as useless grief, or if we are just an illusion among shadows.”
After listening to each translated piece, tenderly spoken by LibriVOX volunteers, we were curious of what else we had overlooked over the years. We’d remembered the film by Eugène Green, who in 2018 released Como Fernando Pessoa Salvou Portugal (How Fernando Pessoa Saved Portugal), which had won the Coimbra Caminhos do Cinema Português for Best Original Screenplay. The film short is only 26 minutes long —a tiny masterpiece. Scroll down for a 9 minute excerpt from Eugène Green’s hauntingly vivid film.