The Shell

My house is a shell. Like the sea’s own creatures
I drew it out of myself, slowly, with care:
a façade of tides, of dream and drifted waste,
its garden and its walls mere sand, mere absence.

My house is myself, and all my caprices.
A pride still burdened with innocence—
if at times it opens into a balcony, it is undone
by the salt that crumbled saints within their niches.

Roofs of glass, and stairways
frail, overgrown with ivy—ah, counterfeit bronze!
A hearth thrown open to the wind, the rooms grown cold.

My house… but that is another tale:
it is I, in wind and rain, barefoot here,
seated upon a stone made wholly of memory.

Translation by Diniz Borges

When the Island Speaks to the World is an ongoing Filamentos–PBBI project honoring Vitorino Nemésio at 125, not as a monument of the past but as a living interlocutor for the present. From the Azores outward to the diaspora and beyond, this series revisits Nemésio’s poetry, essays, fiction, and thought as acts of cultural mediation—where insularity becomes a form of worldliness and the local voice acquires universal resonance. Through critical essays, creative responses, translations, archival rediscoveries, and visual culture, the project invites contemporary readers to hear how an island can still speak—ethically, poetically, and urgently—to a fractured global world.

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Vision

To position Vitorino Nemésio as a central transatlantic thinker of place, identity, language, and belonging—one whose work bridges islands and continents, tradition and modernity, intimacy and history. This project envisions Nemésio not only as a foundational Azorean writer, but as a global humanist whose reflections on culture, exile, memory, and responsibility remain profoundly relevant in the 21st century.

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Mission

The mission of When the Island Speaks to the World is to deepen and expand public understanding of Vitorino Nemésio’s work by:

• Promoting critical, creative, and interdisciplinary engagement with his writing
• Bringing Nemésio into dialogue with contemporary cultural, political, and diasporic realities
• Making his work accessible to English-speaking audiences through translation, interpretation, and contextualization
• Connecting Azorean cultural heritage with the lived experiences of the Portuguese diaspora
• Affirming literature as a bridge between geography and imagination, memory and responsibility

Through Filamentos from Bruma Publications at the Portuguese Beyond Borders Institute at Fresno State, and with the sponsorship of FLAD, this project seeks not only to celebrate Nemésio—but to activate him: as voice, conscience, and companion for our time.

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Curatorial Statement

When the Island Speaks to the World: Vitorino Nemésio at 125 is a transatlantic cultural and literary initiative developed by Filamentos – arts and letters from Bruma Publciations, the publishing arm of the Portuguese Beyond Borders Institute at California State University, Fresno, with the support of FLAD. Conceived as a year-long, evolving project, it marks the 125th anniversary of Vitorino Nemésio by re-situating his work within contemporary debates on identity, language, diaspora, and cultural belonging.

Rather than approaching Nemésio as a fixed canonical figure, this project presents him as a mediator between worlds: island and continent, Portugal and the Americas, memory and modernity. Through essays, translations, creative responses, archival materials, and visual culture, When the Island Speaks to the World foregrounds Nemésio’s enduring relevance for diasporic communities and global audiences, particularly within the Portuguese-American context. Rooted in the Azores yet outward-looking by vocation, Nemésio’s work offers a model of cultural humanism urgently needed in a time marked by fragmentation, displacement, and cultural amnesia.

This initiative reflects the shared mission of FLAD and Fresno State to foster cross-cultural dialogue, promote Lusophone studies beyond national borders, and affirm literature as a living space of encounter between past and present, local experience and global thought.

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Declaração Curatorial

Quando a Ilha Fala ao Mundo: Vitorino Nemésio aos 125 Anos é um projeto cultural e literário transatlântico da California State University, Fresno, com o apoio da FLAD. Pensado como um ciclo em construção permanente, o projeto assinala os 125 anos de Vitorino Nemésio não como homenagem meramente comemorativa, mas como reativação crítica de uma obra que continua a interpelar o nosso tempo.

Longe de uma leitura museológica, Nemésio é aqui apresentado como um escritor-ponte: entre a ilha e o mundo, entre a tradição e a modernidade, entre Portugal e a diáspora. Através de ensaios, traduções, textos criativos, materiais de arquivo e propostas visuais, o projeto propõe uma releitura da sua obra à luz das questões contemporâneas da identidade, da linguagem, do exílio e da pertença cultural—com particular atenção às comunidades açorianas e portuguesas na América do Norte.

Enraizada nos Açores, mas profundamente cosmopolita na sua visão, a escrita de Nemésio oferece uma forma de humanismo literário que permanece essencial num mundo marcado pela fragmentação e pela perda de memória histórica. Quando a Ilha Fala ao Mundo afirma a literatura como espaço vivo de diálogo, responsabilidade e imaginação partilhada—em plena consonância com a missão da FLAD e da Fresno State de promover o pensamento crítico, o intercâmbio cultural e a centralidade da língua e da cultura portuguesas num contexto global.