“Whalers on Land,” by Sidónio Bettencourt, published by the Azorean Institute of Culture (IAC), will be presented by Jorge Paulus Bruno on November 3 at 2 p.m. at the Youth and Arts Academy Bar in Terceira Island. This event is part of the Autumn Alive 2024 (outono vivo) program in Praia da Vitória.
Whalers on Land brings us the heroes and the men, the stories and the testimonies of the last generation of whalers. A radio work by Sidónio Bettencourt that, three decades later, has become a book, illustrated and trilingual, after having won several journalism awards at the end of the 20th century and having been released on a CD-ROM produced by the Azorean Institute of Culture in 2004, says a note from the IAC.
The edition includes two foreign languages, English and French, as well as a Portuguese version, “so that this important historical document and testimony of a generation can be known by those who visit Lajes do Pico and are interested in the history of the archipelago. It’s an epic story of men who used the whale as a complement to their arduous daily lives between land and sea. A story told with the brilliance and knowledge of someone who grew up listening to these adventures.”

Sidónio Bettencourt, originally from a family of whalers from Lajes do Pico, was born in Arrifes, São Miguel, on December 19, 1955. A graduate of the Centro de Formação de Jornalistas (CENJOR), he has been a radio professional since 1976 and a journalist at RTP Açores, where he has held various leadership and management positions. For more than 20 years, he has presented the programs “Inter-ilhas” on Antena 1 and “Atlântida” on RTP Açores, RTP Madeira, and RTP Internacional, frequently being a guest speaker and special envoy at regional, national, and international events.
Throughout his professional career as a journalist and communicator, he has received several prizes and awards, including the Alves Teixeira Award (1985), the Gazeta Journalism Award (1989), the Portuguese Press Club Award (1995), the Azores Reportage Award (1994 and 1995) and the Media Personality Award (2003), to which are added the “Grand Prize of the Luso-American Development Foundation (FLAD) in 1993, as well as the Audiência Trophy – Portugalidade, awarded at the Audiência newspaper’s Grand Gala in 2017.
In addition to the cultural and literary broadcasting he does daily on the radio, he is the author of the poetic narrative books Deserto de Todas as Chuvas (2000); Já não Vem Ninguém (2010), and co-author of the works A Balada das Baleias (2007) and Açores – o Poema da Luz. He takes part in the “Piano, Poets and Troubadours” project and was also the founder and producer, for several years, of the Whalers’ Week in Lajes do Pico, one of the island’s main socio-cultural and religious events.

In Diário Insular-José Lourenço-director.

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