Filamentos, Fifteenth Edition

There is something quietly miraculous about reaching a fifteenth edition in just three years of an arts and letters publication in the Portuguese Diaspora of North America. In an era of shrinking attention spans and vanishing academic publications, Filamentos – Arts and Letters has not merely survived; it has insisted on conversation. And now, in February 2026, this fifteenth issue stands as both milestone and offering—our first edition entirely in English and wholly dedicated to Vamberto Freitas.

From its cover declaration—“ARTES E LETRAS NA DIÁSPORA AÇORIANA / ARTS AND LETTERS IN THE AZOREAN DIASPORA”—this issue signals continuity and change at once. Continuity, because Filamentos remains rooted in the dialogue between islands and diaspora. Change, because language here becomes a bridge rather than a boundary. For the first time, every page speaks in English—not as an abandonment of Portuguese, but as an extension of Azorean letters into a wider Atlantic and NorthAmerican readership. It is an intentional gesture, as noted in the editorial: a desire to reach readers “across the diaspora and beyond” and to invite them to encounter Freitas directly.

This edition is not a marble-carved retrospective. It is, as the director writes, “a fragment—deliberately modest, necessarily incomplete”. Yet within that modesty lies amplitude. The table of contents reads like a constellation of critical gratitude: A Full-Length Portrait, Transatlantic Readings, Between Frontiers and Mirrors, an interview, tributes from various voices, all of them originally written in Portuguese and translated by Fimaentos for this edition. Each piece sketches a facet of the same figure: the critic as bridge-builder, the essayist as ethical listener, the intellectual who refuses insularity even while rooted in island soil.

To dedicate this fifteenth edition to Vamberto Freitas at seventy-five is not simply to honor a birthday. It is to affirm a method. As these pages remind us, Freitas has spent a lifetime reading across distances—between São Miguel and California, between the Azores and North America, between literature and civic life. His work in BorderCrossings, his stewardship of literary supplements, and his insistence that criticism is companionship rather than judgment have shaped an entire generation’s understanding of what Azorean literature can be: rigorous, dialogic, and unafraid of the world.

Filamentos itself is part of that larger undertaking. As the editorial notes, this issue forms part of a month-long dedication revisiting the “paths he opened, the voices he amplified, and the crossings—Atlantic, linguistic, ethical—that define his critical legacy”. In doing so, the publication reflects its own mission: to keep literatures that are dispersed across oceans and continents in conversation, to prevent geography from becoming a form of silence

Fifteen editions in three years is more than a statistic. It is a rhythm. It means that, issue after issue, this digital literary publication has chosen persistence over fatigue, dialogue over isolation, depth over haste. And with this edition, entirely in English, it widens its embrace—speaking to second and third generations who may not read Portuguese fluently, yet hunger for the intellectual and imaginative inheritance of their islands.

If this fifteenth edition succeeds—as the editor hopes—it will not close a chapter but open one. Vamberto Freitas’s work will continue for many years, and we hope that Filamentos will continue, as well. Both belong to an ongoing conversation: between shores, between languages, between memory and future.

Fifteen threads, woven in three years.
One Atlantic.
And a voice— the voice of Vamberto Freitas, critical, generous, attentive—still reading us into ourselves.

Use the link below to see and read the entire literary publication. And be with us on February 27th for a special online edition of our platform.