A fascinating interview with the author by journalist Daniela Canha from Correio dos Açores newspaper in Ponta Delgada.

Correio dos Açores – What inspired you to write “A Capitoa”?
João Paulo Oliveira e Costa (Professor of History at the New University of Lisbon) – I wrote this novel because I was fascinated with the decisive but obscure figure of D. Brites de Macedo, the wife of Jos Dutra, the first Captain of Faial. Very little is known about her life, but it is certain that she was on the island for more than 50 years and that, at the end of her life, she wrote a strange will in which she confessed, 32 years after becoming a widow, that she had not spent the money due for the masses for her dead husband’s soul and had spent it for her own benefit. This circumstance, coupled with the fact that the world changed radically during her lifetime – she went to settle in a remote and isolated territory that became one of the turning points of humanity in less than half a century – made her a real character in a novel, which allowed me, by evoking her, to reconstruct early Faialense society.

The taste of “always returning to the Azores.”

Your opening note reads: “I’m from Lisbon, just like my parents and grandparents; I’m a local who didn’t ‘go home’ on vacation, unlike most of my colleagues, but over time I ‘gained a land’.” Can you talk about this connection you’ve formed with the Azores?
I went to the Azores for the first time in 1976, when I was 14, on a family trip to the island of São Miguel. From 1989 onwards, I started visiting the archipelago for professional reasons as a researcher and professor of History at Universidade Nova de Lisboa, specializing in the History of Discoveries. Since 2000, CHAM (Nova Research Center) has had researchers from the University of the Azores, and I was its director between 2002 and 2020, which has led me to visit the islands several times a year since then, whether for work meetings and academic ceremonies or to take part in congresses and conferences. The friendship with my colleagues, the people’s friendliness, and the territory’s beauty have sealed this connection and this desire to always return.

How did your relationship with the island of Faial, in particular, shape the narrative of “A Capitoa”?
Depending on the protagonist, the narrative had to take place in Faial and Pico. It can be said that the novel allowed me to deepen my knowledge of the island of Faial, having traveled to Horta repeatedly and toured the island, even with “Saudades da Terra” in hand, which allowed me to see the extraordinary accuracy of the priest-chronicler’s text.

Are there any specific memories that played a role in the construction of the characters or a passage in the novel?
Yes, there are memories and experiences that I adapted to the fictionalized characters I created. In fact, I dedicate the book to a friendly couple whose lives inspired the lives of the characters Maria and Paulo with their three marriages to each other. Heleninha is also inspired by a friend I’ve known since she was born with her cognitive disability, which so often disarms me, confuses me, and brings me closer to God. Fathers Hans and Clementino, on the other hand, allowed me to develop themes related to living Christianity, so these characters speak for me and my convictions. Rufino’s passage through Jerusalem and Ceuta or Paulo’s through Arzila is also the result of my knowledge of these urban areas and their reality at the beginning of the 16th century. To the pleasure of contemplating the triangle (Faial, Pico, and São Jorge) from the top of Caldeira, I added a dream-like utopia of Rufino, another character, reflecting my worldview stimulated by the beauty of this landscape. Finally, the café Peter, for what it represents as a crossing point for sailors from all oceans, was reinvented in the novel as “Pedro’s inn” because there must have been a similar establishment in the early days of Faial’s settlement.

Was there any work or author that served as a source of inspiration for the writing of “A Capitoa”?
From the point of view of the narrative and the description of the landscapes and experiences, the novel is very much indebted to the writing of Gaspar Frutuoso, in the way he talks about the clearing of the woods, the formation of urban settlements and farming practices. I also tried to recall “Bad Weather on the Channel” in my text, particularly when I created an incident with a whale in the channel’s waters between Pico and Faial.

Horta, Porto Pim, Cedros and São Roque

Did this book lead you to discover any particularly interesting historical details?
When I reread “Saudades da Terra,” I looked more carefully at the description of the earthquake of 1522 that devastated Vila Franca do Campo, and the description of the festivities that the Captain organized shortly afterward as a way of moralizing the population, which led me to invent a game of canes in Horta, based on this Frutuosian description. Moreover, this novel essentially sought to recreate everyday life without being tied to actual events. In any case, I had to study the urban fabric of Horta and Porto Pim at the beginning of the 16th century and even the profile of towns such as Cedros or São Roque do Pico. It was all very enriching.

What do you consider the most important aspect of merging the facts of history and the mechanisms of fiction?
As a historian and university professor, I commit to my readers that my fictional writing must not betray history. That’s why a character like Mrs. Brites is ideal as the basis for a novel – you know she existed, you know what her role was, you also know how rich she was at the end of her life, and from this relatively simple data. We can recreate everyday life. To do this, I especially used the minutes of town hall meetings in cities like Funchal and Porto, which have exceptional information for the 15th century. The case of Funchal was particularly useful, as the city’s problems between 1460 and 1490 would have been very similar to those faced by Horta three decades later, such as the risk of a salt shortage, for example. The historical novel is like the last frontier of historiographical discourse – it can’t report the opposite of what is known. Still, it can illustrate and explain what the documentation only shows us implicitly. Even the narrator’s and characters’ speech must have an archaic flavor and avoid words that were not used when the action took place.

Islanders…and the convicts

How do the main characters reflect the complexity of life on the islands during the 16th century?
All the characters, except Fathers Clementino and Hans and a few sailors passing through, are residents of the islands of the central group and, therefore, illustrate the different socio-economic, political, or professional categories that made up Azorean society in the first half of the 16th century, from the Captain and his entourage to the municipal officials, the clergy and the people. In their many professions (merchants, landowners, journeymen, prostitutes) and different conditions, not forgetting the enslaved or black slaves, I have added two convicts from the kingdom, one a nobleman and the other a commoner, who would become entrenched in island society, as happened so often at that time. Thus, their lives, their adventures, their religiosity, and their encounters and disagreements seek to recreate the atmosphere of early Azorean society, including inter-island, inter-municipal or inter-town rivalries.

For you, which character or characters have the most impact?
The Capitoa, in a way, hovers over the narrative. Despite everything, along with her son, the second Captain, Mrs. Brites, did exist, so I kept her in the fictional narrative, even though one of the lines of the fiction is to find out how she used the money she didn’t spend to pay the masses for her husband’s soul. Miguel Real, in a review he published in Jornal de Letras, highlighted Heleninha, a character inspired by the Fool from ‘Auto da Barca do Inferno’; I believe she is a very strong character because she speaks unassumingly and naively, incapable of seeing evil, but capable of seeing Love before the lovers themselves.
In Father Hans, I tried to create a character that everyone talks about, whose teachings everyone follows, but who only speaks twice in the whole novel. At the same time, in Father Clementino I imagined the Church of everyone, as Pope Francis exhorted at World Youth Days, by creating a dwarf priest who, together with Father Hans, fights the idea that the soul’s salvation is only guaranteed by the mortification of the body. Fabiana and Isabel enter the narrative as women capable of forging their destinies and overcoming the difficulties they encounter in a patriarchal society. In this respect, I am following the signs given to us by the documentation in general, the very prominence of D. Brites, the Captain, and also what comes through, for example, in texts by Gil Vicente, such as the “Auto da Índia” and the “Farsa de Inês Pereira”. Vicente’s theater is undoubtedly a mirror of the Portuguese society of his time, and the society formed on the islands was similar to that in the kingdom.

Life on the islands as part of the national dynamic

What historical elements and central themes can readers identify in “A Capitoa”?
The main historical elements are the recreation of the population centers and their people in Faial, Pico, and Terceira (and a little in São Jorge). The references to buildings correspond to the urban fabric that historiography reveals based on what Gaspar Frutuoso tells us or the information available, for example, in Antonieta Reis Leite’s doctoral thesis. The novel teaches history in terms of everyday experiences but doesn’t recreate any known historical events.

How does the novel address universal issues as part of the specific history of the Azores?
As a teacher of Portuguese history in the 15th and 16th centuries, I always make a point of showing life on the islands as part of a national dynamic. In fact, after the first years of settlement, the first plowing and urban settlement, the people of the Azores were just as connected to the general evolution of the country and humanity as the populations of Trás-os-Montes or Beiras. Moreover, new arrivals from America, Africa, or Asia were known in the Azores before they reached Lisbon. As a co-participant in the evolution of European civilization at a time of globalization, Azorean society could discuss the controversies of Christianity or dispose of modern objects such as the clock or the fork. As I mentioned, the real life of D. Brites, the Captain, took place in the decades when the island of Faial was no longer a territory plunged into the far reaches of the ocean (an ultra-periphery in our contemporary language). Still, it was located in the center of the world. The novel seeks to portray precisely how the islands were home to communities that were co-participants in European and world progress, both in their scientific developments, such as the new geography, new machines, and new weapons, and in their misfortunes, such as slavery and prostitution.

The explosion of a ship and Fabiana on the beach…

Is there a specific scene that is particularly meaningful to you?
It’s difficult for me to choose, as they were all imagined and fixed in the text in a very emotional creative process, but I can highlight the following: the description of Pedro and Isabel’s first night, which is the deepest and most sensitive erotic text I’ve ever written; Rufino’s dream in which the landscape of Faial is transformed into the setting of the painting “The Garden of Delights” by Jerónimo Bosch, for being a challenging foray into surrealism; the discussion between Manuel Cebola and Inácia, for illustrating the dark side of a society in which people create in the presence of the Devil; Rufino’s confession to Father Clementino in Jerusalem, for defying the strictest rules and for exuding humanity and humility. In any case, one of the most intense moments, which I hope will be especially exciting and somewhat surprising to read, is the incident at the end of the party where they play cane when Fabiana comes ashore in unique conditions after a ship has exploded. Beyond all these episodes, the climb up Pico Mountain at the end thrills me.

What message do you hope Azorean readers get from reading “A Capitoa”?
I hope that “A Capitoa” will help Azoreans in general. The people of Faial, in particular, to learn more about their history and become more aware of the importance that the islands have had since their settlement for the country and the world, just as I hope that this novel will help the Portuguese, in general, to understand that the Azores have always been an integral and indispensable part of the country, ever since they were incorporated into the domains of the Portuguese crown.

Daniela Canha–journalist for Correio dos Açores – Natalino Vivieiros, director

Synopsis
On March 4, 1528, a pilgrim in Jerusalem dreams of the day he arrived in Faial, exactly fifty years before, and fell in love with D. Brites de Macedo, the wife of the island’s captain.

While the day-to-day life on the islands is full of upsets, such as the lack of salt or the antics of a whale, in Jerusalem, the pilgrim goes to confession to a dwarf priest, who decides to accompany him to the Azores when he learns that there is a priest there who preaches devotion to God through joy instead of penance and fear.

On the islands, where the echoes of modernity that are changing the world are arriving, there are unsolved murders, a tormented demoniac, a false priest, unexpectedly fatal fates, a ship that explodes, and two widows who discover the happiness of pleasure. And everything is observed by a girl so simple that she doesn’t even realize what sin is.

Finally, the pilgrim Rufino returns to complete his days with the captain; when he arrives, he tells her about the dream in which he saw Faial as a garden of delights on the edge of the heavenly Jerusalem…

Author
JOÃO PAULO OLIVEIRA E COSTA
João Paulo Oliveira e Costa was born in Lisbon on April 1, 1962. He has been a full professor of History at the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities of Universidade Nova de Lisboa since 2009. He is the director of the Center for the History of Aquém and Além-Mar (CHAM). He has a vast body of historiographical work, including O Japão e o Cristianismo no Século XVI. Ensaios de História Luso-Nipónica (1999), Henrique, o Infante (2009), Mare Nostrum – Em Busca de Honra e Riqueza (2013) and História da Expansão e do Império Português (coordinator and co-author, 2014). He was president of the Portugal-Japan Friendship Association (2000-2005) and was recently awarded the Order of the Rising Sun by the Emperor of Japan.

Translated to English as a community outreach program from the Portuguese Beyond Borders Institute (PBBI) and the Modern and Classical Languages and Cultures Department (MCLL) as part of Bruma Publication and ADMA (Azores-Diaspora Media Alliance)  at California State University, Fresno