Some episodes of José Afonso's life are told in a Portuguese-Galician comic strip, by Teresa Moure and Maria João Worm, published this week, marking the 94th anniversary of the birth of the Portuguese singer-songwriter.
“Balada do Desterro – Zeca Afonso” is released under the label of the Portuguese publisher Tradisom, but is the result of a partnership with the Galician publisher aCentral Folque, from which the idea for the editorial project came from, as editor José Moças told Lusa.
The book was written by Galician author Teresa Moure, professor at the University of Santiago de Compostela, and designed by Portuguese Maria João Worm.
In the last pages of “Balada do Desterro” it is explained that this book romanticizes the life of José Afonso: “Everything written in fiction is necessarily false. It can be based on documentary evidence from research books, from actually occurring events, from interviews, from the memories of the living, but it is false. It mentions real figures, but it is false. He tries to follow the rigor of what happened, but it is condemned to be false.”
The narrative follows a chronology of José Afonso's life, but is balanced above all between his relationship with Africa, in particular with Mozambique, and with Galicia, in Spain, whose appreciation for the Portuguese singer-songwriter's music remains to this day.
Crossing fiction and reality, the authors of this comic also highlight the female figure in the musician's life, particularly with reference to the two daughters he had with two women, or with the illustrations for the songs “Teresa Torga” and “As seven Mulheres do Minho ”.
With a visual work that resembles a theater of shadows, “Balada do Desterro” also makes reference to the censorship of the Estado Novo, the arrest of José Afonso in Caxias, the revolution of April 25, 1974, the importance of “Grândola, Vila Morena”, both in Portugal and Galicia.
In the book, José Afonso is portrayed as having a “melancholic character”, who experienced concerts as “if he were placed in a window for public contemplation”, who loved Joan Baez, Bob Dylan and Jacques Brel, but who hated “fashions and modernities ”.
In the presentation note for “Balada do Desterro”, Teresa Moure and Maria João Worm say they feel “fascination with that man who sang political causes”. “But, between words and silhouettes, both weave a network to support a more intimate Zeca than his comrades usually remember”, says Tradisom.
José Afonso was born on August 2, 1929, in Aveiro, he started singing while a student in Coimbra, having recorded his first albums in the early 1950s with fados from Coimbra.
Considered an unavoidable name in 20th century Portuguese music, José Afonso recorded, among others, the albums “Cantigas do Maio” (1971), “Venham Mais Cinco” (1973), “Coro dos Tribunais” (1974) and “Com as Minhas Tamanquinhas” (1976), which have been reissued.
Author of “Grândola, Vila Morena”, one of the songs chosen as the password for the April 1974 Revolution, José Afonso died on February 23, 1987, in Setúbal, of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.
Source: Lusa