In Jénifer, or a French Princess (the Truly Unknown Islands), Joel Neto presents a powerful literary exploration of modern Azorean life through the eyes of a ten-year-old girl, navigating poverty, disillusionment, and dreams of escape. Set in the shadowy corners of Terceira Island. Not on the sunlit stages of festas or in the lush pastures admired by tourists, this novella is a lyrical, biting, and heart-wrenching reflection on the region’s economic and social marginalization. Jénifer Armelim, a self-named “unicorn” and self-styled French princess, guides us through this fractured landscape. Much like Charles Dickens’s Oliver Twist, Neto’s novella uses a child protagonist to interrogate systemic inequality and offer a tender yet unsparing look at the forgotten. This essay unpacks the dilemmas facing the Azores, as revealed in Jénifer, and offers four literary comparisons with Oliver Twist. It emphasizes the importance of this book in reshaping the Azorean diaspora’s understanding of their ancestral home.

What makes Jénifer striking is its refusal to romanticize the Azores. Terceira is not a tranquil Eden here but a place of struggle. Neto writes about housing projects that form concentric circles of exclusion, with the poorest residents hidden from view by “perimeter belts” meant to visually sanitize social decay. The children in these neighborhoods grow up amid addiction, underfunded schools, joblessness, and dependence on RSI (the Portuguese minimum income program), which has become less a tool of uplift and more a mechanism of political manipulation.

Jénifer’s neighborhood is filled with broken dreams and derelict promises, yet she resists becoming a statistic. She sits on a wall observing her world like a mythological creature—part child, part sage—and speaks with a mix of irony, hope, and melancholy. Her invented identities and tales of princesshood and unicorns are not delusions but forms of survival. Neto, like Dickens, understands the necessity of the child’s imagination in a world that offers few material escapes.

Literary Comparisons with Oliver Twist

Both Dickens and Neto understand the moral force of the child’s gaze. Oliver and Jénifer witness the adult world with clear eyes. They are innocent but not naive. Oliver is born into a cruel workhouse and endures systemic abuse before encountering kindness. Jénifer lives in a similarly hostile environment but has no benefactor waiting. She is surrounded by adults who either ignore her, pity her, or take advantage of her. Yet both characters highlight the failure of institutions to protect the vulnerable, be it Victorian England’s Poor Law or the modern Azorean welfare state.

Oliver is renamed, misnamed, and commodified throughout his story—treated as a number, a nuisance, and a commodity by the adults around him. Jénifer, too, resists fixed identity. She invents names for others and for herself: Cajó, Tricofaite, Mona Lisa. Her name, Armelim, she claims, proves she’s French royalty. These linguistic inventions mirror Dickens’s use of allegorical or ironic names, such as Mr. Bumble or Bill Sikes, while also exploring the power of self-naming as a form of resistance. Where Oliver’s identity is eventually clarified through bloodlines and inheritance, Jénifer’s identity remains fluid, rooted not in family but in imagination and community observation.

Dickens’s narrator often steps in to pass judgment or stir the reader’s outrage. Neto’s narrator, by contrast, is more introspective and observational. A writer returned to Terceira, he is deeply moved by Jénifer but remains unsure of how—or whether—to intervene. This creates a quieter, more morally ambiguous tone. Both authors, however, share a commitment to moral clarity in portraying social injustice: they never sensationalize poverty, but they make sure we feel it.

Dickens’s London is chaotic and grimy but teeming with opportunity and danger. Neto’s Terceira is eerily static—like a place waiting to be remembered. The housing project is both prison and stage, filled with improvised rituals and small acts of solidarity. In both books, the space becomes a character, shaping the rhythms and restrictions of life. Dickens’s city allows movement; Neto’s Island, more insular and isolating, highlights the entrapment of poverty in geography, psyche, and expectation.

Expanding the Diaspora’s Perception

For the Azorean Diaspora, especially in North America, Jénifer is a crucial literary piece. Many in the U.S. and Canada, particularly those from Terceira, have cultivated a folkloric image of the island: a place of spiritual devotion, bullfights, music, and culinary delights. This image is not entirely false; it reflects deep cultural pride but is dangerously incomplete. Jénifer reminds readers that the Azores are not preserved in time or protected from the world’s inequities. They are modern societies grappling with globalization, unemployment, educational inequality, addiction, and fraying social contracts.

Members of the Diaspora often contribute financially to their home villages, support cultural clubs, and return for summer festas. These acts of loyalty are admirable, but they can also unintentionally perpetuate a narrative of Terceira as a “Disneyland for adults”—a place of fun and heritage, without acknowledging the daily challenges faced by residents. Neto’s novella confronts this nostalgia with lived reality. In doing so, it invites a deeper kind of solidarity based not only on tradition but on truth.

As a co-translator (along with my friend and amazing editor, Katharine F. Baker) of Jénifer into English, I felt the need to bring this novella to the diaspora and all English-language readers.  For third- and fourth-generation Americans and Canadians of Azorean ancestry who may not read Portuguese fluently, the book offers an accessible and emotionally resonant entry point into contemporary Azorean literature. It does more than entertain; it educates. Through Jénifer’s voice, the Diaspora hears not a mythical past, but the heartbeat of an island in transformation.

This is especially important for younger generations trying to reconcile their dual identities. For a child or teen growing up in Fall River, San Diego, Tulare, Vancouver, or Toronto, Jénifer may serve as a bridge: not just to the past their grandparents remember, but to a present their parents rarely speak of. The novella also has the power to inspire action. By understanding the systemic issues that shape life in the Azores, readers abroad may become better advocates for equity, educational exchange, and economic development in the archipelago.

Final Thoughts

Jénifer is not a traditional coming-of-age story. There is no clear arc of transformation or redemption. The story ends as it begins: in the margins. But the act of telling the story and bearing witness to Jénifer’s courage and sorrow is revolutionary. Neto’s careful attention to the material details of poverty—mismatched galoshes, rotting trailers, the scent of silage and methadone—makes what is often hidden visible.

Dickens used fiction to promote reform in Victorian England. Neto’s aims are subtler but no less urgent. He invites readers, especially those who have left the Azores or grown up distant from them, to reckon with the fullness of island life: its pain, resilience, and complicated hope.

Through Jénifer, Neto creates an unforgettable heroine. She is tough yet tender, odd yet perceptive, hilarious and tragic all in the same breath. Her silence is as eloquent as her stories, and her presence lingers in the reader’s mind long after the book ends. She is not simply a symbol of Azorean suffering—she is its voice.

Joel Neto’s Jénifer or a French Princess (the Truly) Unknown Islands, published in English in a co-edition of Bruma Publications in California and Letras Lavadas in the Azores, is a quietly monumental work. It reshapes the literary landscape of the Azores by centering the lives of those most frequently ignored—children, women, the poor—and by challenging readers to see beyond the postcard images. In its comparison to Oliver Twist, the novella is part of a tradition of social literature that uses childhood as a lens for truth. But Jénifer also goes further: it speaks directly to the Azorean Diaspora, calling for an updated, more nuanced understanding of their roots.

In Jénifer’s world, there are no saints or saviors. There are broken walls, muddy boots, public housing, and a deep desire for something more. But there is also kindness, humor, and the stubborn endurance of a people who refuse to be erased. By reading her story, we participate in her survival. And by sharing it, we affirm that the Azores are islands of memory and meaning.

Diniz Borges, California State University – Fresno

In the US and Canada, you can order it from Bruma Publications

In the Azores, all of Portugal, and any EU country, you can order it from Letras Lavadas

https://www.letraslavadas.pt/jenifer-or-a-french-princess-de-joel-neto/