What do these twenty-five testimonies reveal about the way Joel Neto has influenced Portuguese literature?

Lift Your Eyes to the Mountains – translation of Levanta os olhos para as Montanhas- is born from that very premise: the steady evolution of Joel Neto as a writer who has come into his own with wisdom—and a measure of hard-won peace. The book gathers twenty-five texts that celebrate twenty-five years of literary workand, in 2025, mark the tenth anniversary of Arquipélago, a novel of particular importance in his career and a turning point in his recognition as a major voice.

These testimonies—by Fernando Alves, Francisco José Viegas, João de Melo, João Marcelino, Joaquim Vieira, José Mário Silva, and Raquel Varela; by António de Névada, Carlos Mesquita Severino, José Júlio Rocha, Margarida Quinteiro, Paula Cotter Cabral, and myself; by Diniz Borges, Onésimo Teotónio de Almeida, Urbano Bettencourt, Vamberto Freitas, and Victor Rui Dores; by Hugo Ribeiro, João Gonçalves, Lélia Pereira Nunes, and Nuno Quintas—shine a light on one of the most distinctive voices in contemporary Portuguese literature.

Taken together, these authors speak of the impact Joel Neto’s writing has had on their lives, never losing sight of the rare way in which he sees the world and deciphers the themes closest to him: identity and belonging, existential dilemmas, silence and outcry, the land, the return home. Though unmistakably Azorean, Joel remains acutely attentive to the immediacy of daily life, imprinting his work with a voice that is at once of the earth and of the world—of being and feeling, of thinking and observing action and stillness. It is, ultimately, the essence of life itself, the raw clay from which humanity is shaped.

These qualities break decisively with what is often labeled “traditional Azorean literature,” granting his work a universal, human, and humanist dimension that sets him apart within the broader landscape of Portuguese letters.

How does Joel Neto’s writing resonate through the diversity of voices gathered in this book?

A central figure in the intellectual life of Angra do Heroísmo, of Terceira Island, of the Azorean archipelago, and of Portugal as a whole, Joel Neto thinks the world while constantly searching for ways to redeem it—above all through love, because he dreams, and because he possesses that particular kind of faith found in good men.

His voice inspires the construction of the self through encounter with the other (and vice versa). From it, we learn that reflective observation must lead us toward building a more just existence. The twenty-five texts in Lift Your Eyes to the Mountains are as compelling as they are moving. Written mostly by people who have worked with Joel or continue to do so, they carry deep emotional weight without ever abandoning intellectual rigor.

These perspectives—by men and women, some widely known, others more anonymous; from different backgrounds and professions; each with a distinct relationship to the honoree—are united by admiration for the path of a journalist, novelist, television commentator, and prolific newspaper columnist who chose to return to his roots. In that return, he has sought to remain conscious of the reach of his artistic voice in addressing the problems of the world: his immediate world, and from there, the shared world of all of us—inhabitants of a disconsolate age still rich with the potential for happiness.

Is “lifting one’s eyes to the mountains” meant as a metaphor?

As I noted earlier, Joel’s personal and literary voice is that of a humanist seeking universal well-being, even when much of what he writes is rooted in the local. It is from the ground that he reaches for the celestial; from the foothills that he attentively observes the mountain—its slopes and its summit—knowing that he must eventually lower his gaze again to the everyday, to the earthly. For it is down here, in the tangible world, that resolutions must be embraced.

Drawing on the mountain metaphor—recovered from his most recent literary work, Terceira (2024), a love letter to his son and itself an adaptation of a psalm—I found the right title for this collective volume. Joel’s writing constantly reminds us of the need to contemplate the mountains, to climb toward their peaks, without ever forgetting that what lies at the top will never be our throne, and that our roots must remain firmly planted in the foothills of reality.

Does this book also function as a space of encounter? In what way?

Levanta os olhos para as montanhas indeed creates multiple forms of reconnection. On one level, it brings us back to Joel’s own body of work—at a time when he has devoted more energy to cultural creation beyond the page, having founded, with his wife Marta, the bookstore Lar Doce Livro in the heart of Angra do Heroísmo.

It is a beautiful project, one for which Angra already owes much gratitude: an effort to place the UNESCO-listed city within the evolving currents of contemporary thought through art, culture, reflection, and knowledge. These aims are shared by the publishing house they created and by Dois Caminhos – Association for the Promotion of Arts and Culture. Supported by a strong circle of collaborators, this ideological ecosystem seeks to enrich the lived experience of Angra’s citizens through cultural sensitivity and engagement.

From another perspective, Lift Your Eyes to the Mountains becomes a meeting place between reader and writer, between islands and mainland, between personal experience and collective memory. As a window of contemplation, it extends an open invitation to all—long-time readers and newcomers alike—to lift their eyes and contemplate the mountains, without forgetting the need to return to what is earthly, tangible, malleable, and, above all, redeemable.

What does this book also suggest about the literature being produced in the islands?

Azorean island literature, in my view, has shown a clear desire to evolve. It has stepped out of stagnation and into the light; it has turned away from navel-gazing to become capable of seeing the world—or worlds—reflecting on them without betraying memory or tradition.

Joel Neto’s work exemplifies this bridge between the local and the universal, between the Azorean and the global—not as opposing poles, but as proof that close observation of the immediate can lead to profoundly universal reflections. What emerges throughout Lift Your Eyes to the Mountains is a deep commitment to human development and social justice.

This commitment is shared by other Azorean writers, such as João de Melo or Pedro Almeida Maia, who, in different ways, draw on the archipelago as a source of literary inspiration only to expand it into new creative territories and broader ideological consequences.

In Diário Insular-translated by Diniz Borges