Terra Java

Da Wong eu gosto (muito)

2009-09-03T18:53:00.000-07:00

A banda sonora de "Terra Java", para os que ainda não leram (ou ouviram). Vale a pena. As almas entendidas, além de estarem próximas do Imperador Celestial, fluem naturalmente para os pontos mais baixos.

Já parti!

2009-08-17T03:30:00.000-07:00

Clemente em Sydney. Sem clemência: a Harbour Bridge, a Opera House, o Jardim Botânico... Às vezes a distância pesa. Pesa-me... Long live to the red nipples and that beautiful necklace!

A luz de Magelan

2009-08-12T04:23:00.000-07:00

Agora também nos comboios belgas. Pobres passageiros, também eles atormentados pela luz fosca deste Magalhães...

TJ na VM

2009-08-10T10:00:00.000-07:00

Sabendo que o blogue havia sido milagrosamente reactivado, o Paulo Farinha, editor-executivo da "Volta ao Mundo", fez o obséquio de nos enviar esta simpática cópia digital. Clicar e ampliar, portanto.

Ai Magalhães, Magalhães...

2009-08-10T01:45:00.000-07:00

É isto a que o senhor tem direito? No que me toca, até concordo. Os traidores nada merecem. Mas era bem melhor a omissão. Uma coisa assim desenxabida é que não faz sentido nenhum... Indigna para Lisboa, indigna para Portugal...

No "Expresso"

2009-08-09T18:26:00.001-07:00

Uma recensão da obra no "Actual", e é tudo. Nada como clicar e ampliar. Lê-se melhor.

Wiki Pereira

2009-08-08T02:40:00.000-07:00

Feita a necessária desambiguação, chegaremos a todas as ramificações Pereira. Do que eu mais gosto mesmo é da variante Perera, que jamais deve ser confundida com "Pereré". Enfim, uma bela wiki árvore.

Mais um bravo Pereira

2009-01-15T07:36:00.002-08:00

Percebemos melhor a sina dos dekasegi nipo-brasileiros e do que poderia ter sido a vida e obra de Márcia Shintaku Pereira.

"Austrália": filme longo e fraquito

2009-01-07T08:01:00.000-08:00

Uma oportunidade desperdiçada, nada a fazer. Não se assustem com o ecrã panorâmico que quase se sobrepõe ao livro. É mesmo assim.

"Terra Java" @ Alcochete

2008-12-29T03:14:00.000-08:00

A mensagem espalha-se, agora também na terra natal de Dom Manuel. Não há desculpas para os turistas de Alcochete: é ir à loja da Oficina do Livro no Freeport. Livros com portes livres.

Synopsis in English

2008-12-25T03:28:00.000-08:00

"Terra Java", 270 pages, Oficina do Livro, October 2008

Synopsis

A honeymoon makes a man unveil his past and the secrets behind in the discovery of Australia.

Manel and Cindy Pereira fulfill their common dream of visiting Australia in their honeymoon. In the promontory of Point Hicks, first place in the island-continent sighted by Captain James Cook in 1770, Manel bumps into a Portuguese surname, his own surname, which, regardless the strong opposition of his wife, will make him embark in a intriguing and simultaneously amazing trip in time.

Encouraged by Ming, his new girlfriend in Melbourne, and by his Portuguese fellows of Sydney, Manel decides to face what he believes being a dishonest historical fabrication that ignores the pioneering arrival of Portuguese nation in this faraway territory.

Based on the most recent historical evidence, Terra Java is not only a original love story, but also helps to understand the role of the Portuguese sailors in the discovery of Australia. A breathtaking fiction, where adventure and magic of the places recall our History and pave the way to the reconciliation with love.

"Terra Java" arrived in the bookstores

2008-10-08T11:12:00.000-07:00

Le Beaujolais nouveau est arrivé! And "Terra Java" also. Click here to order the book now. Read the synopsis in Portuguese, soon also in English and Spanish.

Uma viagem de núpcias leva um homem ao encontro do seu passado e dos segredos que envolveram a descoberta da Austrália.

Manel e Cindy Pereira realizam o sonho de ir à Austrália em lua-de-mel. No promontório de Point Hicks, primeiro local da ilha-continente avistado pelo comandante James Cook em 1770, Manel descobre um apelido em português, o seu próprio apelido, que, apesar da veemente oposição da esposa, o fará embarcar numa intrigante e ao mesmo tempo sensacional viagem ao passado.

Incentivado por Ming, a sua nova namorada chinesa de Melbourne, e pelos patrícios do bairro português de Sidney, Manel decide enfrentar o que crê ser uma escandalosa falsificação histórica que retira ao nobre e valente povo lusitano a primazia na chegada ao longínquo continente.

Baseado nas mais recentes descobertas históricas, Terra Java constitui não apenas uma original história de amor, como ajuda a compreender o papel dos navegadores portugueses na descoberta da Austrália. Um romance arrebatador, onde a aventura e a magia dos lugares reconstroem a nossa história e nos leva ao caminho da reconciliação com o amor.

Just for Portuguese-speaking readers

2008-10-07T04:36:00.000-07:00

Yes, it can happen when somebody visits downtown Cairns, Queensland. Good to dive with TUSA.

About Australia, History, traitors and their consequences

2008-10-07T02:38:00.000-07:00

By João Lopes Marques

There is nothing more fascinating than rewriting History. Revisionism is a natural temptation for the humiliated and a big business for the manipulators. As we all know, the records and versions which prevail in the long term are the winner’s — Abba were very right stating that The Winner Takes It All.

Toomas Hendrik Ilves himself assumed recently that Estonia wants to rewrite now its own History during the Soviet yoke, and maybe more. Interesting how memories and myths from the Past influence and legitimize our identities and perceptions in the Present.

Yet, these text is devoted to Australia. I mean, to the secret discovery of Australia by the Portuguese. In that far and small European rectangle I was born people are quite excited about books printed in Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide. Seems that some Australian alternative intelectuals decided to challange finally the Queen of England and Captain Cook’s immortality.

In the Aussie Antipodes and without interfering in the debate, for sure we Portuguese sympathise with the idea. In some cafes in Lisbon you’ll find eventually some groups gossiping about the fact. According to Peter Tricket and its book Beyond Capricorn published in March 2007, the official discoverer of Australia should be Cristóvão de Mendonça, a Portuguese from Alentejo who built his career in Portuguese Imperial Asia.

Seems astounding, but Tricket and others assure there is now evidence he reached Botany Bay as early as 1522 — more than 250 years before Captain James Cook. It’s not completely illogical: by the same time, Portuguese were already colonizing East Timor, which lays 385 miles north of Darwin. But if this is true, why didn’t we claim the fifth continent? Because the soil was dry, peoples were ferocious and this territory was in Spain’s share of the World according to Tordesilhas Treaty we signed with them in 1494.

Patriotism? No doubt. I am impressed by Beyond Capricorn, especially that part Trickett writes about the legends aboriginals created after the Portuguese, “men with turtle and crocodile skin”. Anyway we Portuguese are experts in this kind of phenomena. Manoel de Oliveira, our most well-known movie director, just premiered in Cannes a film who stands Colombus was desguised Portuguese serving our King against Spain. It’s funny to see a new and millionnaire business emerging around ‘Portuguese Colombus’, a kind of Iberian Da Vinci Code.

Strange thinks are happening, though. Peter Trickett’s book is very difficult to find either in Australia or Amazon. Evidence about the Portuguese shipwrecks off Australian coast has been sistematically removed. Conservative Anglo-Saxon scholars don’t even want to shed light to this issue.

To make things even worse, the Chinese are also claiming their discovery of Australia. Adressing to the Australian Parliament in Camberra in 2003, President Hu Jintao underlined the presence of the Chinese Treasure Fleet in the big island at the beginning of the 15th century. The British maverick Gavin Menzies wrote the best-seller 1421 and that helps Beijing to also claim Australia. Maybe the Central Committee even financed him — and don’t be surprised if during the Olympic Games the Chinese renew their pioneering in the discovery of the world.

I could continue: the very distant Australia is one of the best exemples of the revisionism to come. And it also shows us the world jumps when there is a leak of information: historians believe the Portuguese reached it in 1522 because they bought the Chinese maps; and that Mendonça’s expedition was also due to the fact a Portuguese traitor, Fernão de Magalhães, was angry with our king and had too many secrets he offered to Spain.

This is amazing food for thought. Sooner or later, the first gold rush to Australia (“The Island of Gold”) and its sensitive nature in a Anglo-Saxonized world will emerge as a virulent topic. More and more we will realize Captain James Cook and British Admiralty cooked History. Yet there is hope: Victoria state has already included the hypothesis of the Portuguese secret discovery of Australia in Primary School manuals. Lucky pupils who can now challenge the Abba axiom: till when will the winner take it all?

This article was published originally in Eesti Ekspress. Click here to read it in Estonian.

Heil Cook (what's wrong?)

2008-10-06T13:13:00.000-07:00

If you want my opinion, I don't think this statue is very normal.

But we must admit Captain arrived in Cooktown 160 years before Adolf Hitler took power; and 250 years after the Portuguese vessels arrived in Australia.

500 years later the ship is different

2008-10-01T15:01:00.000-07:00

Slightly bigger and definitely uglier. At least Captain Peter Probert is more honest than James Cook.

How the book "Terra Java" started

2008-10-01T14:51:00.000-07:00

Map 'shows Cook wasn't first'
March 21, 2007 04:37pm

A 16th century maritime map in a Los Angeles library vault proves Portuguese adventurers, not British or Dutch, were the first Europeans to discover Australia, according to a new book detailing the secret discovery of the continent.

To read more click here.

Who was this... Francis Cook?

2008-10-01T13:07:00.000-07:00

(Sh)it happens. Captain Crook was in the end a mix of Francis Drake and James Cook.

Be ready for the debate

2008-10-01T12:57:00.000-07:00

Who really discovered Australia? From now on you can pass by this blog to read and comment the latest posts. Just few people believe nowadays that Captain James Cook was the first man to sight that huge mass of land. What about the Aboriginals, who arrived there more than 50,000 years ago? Or the Indonesian fishermen and pearl hunters? Or, in a more Eurocentric way, even the Portuguese sailors, who arrived in Timor it the 1510's?

Insisting in Captain Cook's discovery is pretty much the same as the creationism as a theory. Besides George W. Bush and Sarah Palin who else believes in Adam and Eve? Hmm? Please raise your hands...