Novels

List compiled together by Frederick Noronha Email: fred@goa1.dot.net.in

Lino Leitao's novel, "The Gift of the Holy Cross", published by Peepal Tree Press in Leeds, England (17 King's AVenue, Leeds LS6 1QS, Yorkshire, England). The publication date is given as July, 1998, the price as Six pounds ninety-nine pence, the number of pages as 260. "Leitao's epic novel deals with the mingling of religion and politics as the people of Goa wake from centuries of Portuguese rule only to find their struggle inherited by the same classes who had aided and abetted their colonial rulers. They find, too, that their distinctive culture is in danger of being swallowed up by their incorporation into India. Focusing on the tragic figure of Mario Jacques, a village leader isolated by his own confusions and swept away by social forces beyond individual control, Leitao writes passionately of a popular movement betrayed. If the old world is marked by injustice, ignorance and oppression, the poor have at least a sense of community. In the new world there is only a ruthless competitiveness in which the worst rise to the top. "Leitao was born in Goa, resident in Uganda for some years and now lives in Canada. He is the author of three collections of short stories."

- Info forwarded by Peter Nazareth (for Goa-Net Digest).

INDIAN NOCTURNE. Antonio Tabucchi. Chatto & Windus, London. UKP 11.95. Pp 92. 1988. Pisa-born author features Goa too in this "subtle, enigmatic novel".

SORROWING LIES MY LAND. Lambert Mascarenhas. Goa Publications. 1970. Rs 15. Pp 179. Touching novel about conditions in colonial Goa, at the end of Portuguese rule. Written by a freedom fighter, and granted belated academic recognition of late. Now it is a text in Goa University. Author is former founder-editor of GOA TODAY.

THE GENERAL IS UP. Peter Nazarath. (A Novel Set in Modern Africa). Writers Workshop, Calcutta. 1984. Rs 80 (hardback) Rs 60 (flexiback). Pp 190. Something which no Goan who had anything to do with Africa can miss. A fictionalised version of Idi Amin's Uganda and what it meant to Goans.

THE MANGO AND THE TAMARIND TREE: A NOVEL OF GOA. Leslie de Noronha. 1970. Writers' Workshop, Calcutta. Pp 236.

ON A GOAN BEACH. Remegio Botelho. A Novel. 1994. Rs 90. Pp 181. "An Indian expatraite returns to his roots and finds that his seaside village of Anjuna has grown into a hippie paradise. What follows is a story of drug-addicts, drug peddlers, drug-traffickers and unmarried love....." Other novels by the same author: DESTINATION GOA and GOA OF THE GODS.

GOLDEN GOA! Joseph Furtado. 1938. Rs 3-0-0. Pp 233. Probably one of the earliest novels in English on Goa, by a writer from the village of Pilerne (Bardez). His other works include A GOAN FIDDLER, PRIMEIROS VERSOS, etc.

GLAD SEASONS IN GOA. Frank Simoes. Viking, Delhi. 1994. Rs 295. Pp 317. Begins as the story of Simoes' labours to find a "perfect acre by the sea", but eventually became one Goan's discovery of his idyllic native land and its passionate, inquisitive, hospitable inhabitants.