They left the islands a legacy / of hybrid words and gloomy plantations

Translator Shook talks with President Jorge Carlos Fonseca about contemporary Cabo Verdean poetry, his influences, and the relationship between literature and politics.

In point of fact, Lisbon was not waiting there [to greet us.

The Esplanada, thick with the scent of fragrant [DDT

These poems display the health and vitality of a literature that has already proved to be a potent medium for self-expression, a grounds for linguistic experimentation, and an important declaration of autonomy itself.

What does he have to fear?

I proceeded with caution / Like a marble inching toward the line

silence sullen-faced fate reaches my ears

Has justice disappeared? / Has man turned animal?

An active literary culture is emerging from among its estimated population of just over ten million.

There will be no more wolf on the vast schoolyards.

All right! I love this movie!