Biography
Manuel Portas studied Galician-Portuguese at the University of Santiago de Compostela and later taught language and literature at the secondary school Xelmírez I in this city, where he was headteacher for many years. He is well known for his work Language and Society in Galiza (1991), a history of the Galician language from a sociolinguistic perspective. As well as being a member of the Board for Linguistic Normalization and an adviser for such important publications as A Nosa Terra, he was a city councillor for the Galician nationalist party BNG. In the field of fiction, he has published nine titles, two of which have received Galicia’s most prestigious literary prizes: Lourenço, Jongleur (2015), winner of the García Barros Award, and On Points (2019), winner of the Blanco Amor Award.
Synopsis
On Points (256 pages) is the story of a group of individuals who are required to attend a driver’s licence points recovery course. They are all suffering from loneliness, but the course will force them to work together, overcoming their solitude in order to discover each other’s needs, hidden desires and insecurities, and capacity for love. In a normal situation, one that may not be to our liking, we are given the opportunity to transcend our own borders. The novel is divided into twenty chapters. Adela is waiting outside a driving school on the Tambre industrial estate north of Santiago de Compostela.
Sample
Adela crosses her arms, leans her left shoulder against the doorframe and, a touch alert and distrustful, glances over at the young man waiting alongside her a short distance away, next to the lowered shutter of the building. At this precise moment, their looks coincide. It’s a split second of mutual frankness, barely sufficient time to register any particular details in the other’s appearance. Even so, it’s enough for them to categorize each other. They both then stare in front, ignoring each other in silence, one at either end of the metallic mesh.
If we move a little away from them, if we place ourselves, for example, on the other side of the street, the scene is completed by the sign stretching above their heads all along the façade, in large, white letters painted on a blue background. On one of the edges, on the righthand side of the banner, appears the drawing of a lorry in 3D and, at the other extreme, the silhouette of a black vehicle, so stylized they could pass as childish caricatures of a toy car.
But let’s get back to Adela. Her eyes are large, almond-shaped, chestnut-brown, slightly misaligned perhaps on account of her shortsightedness. If we pay a little more attention, it is possible her tear ducts are somewhat irritated due to an excess of mascara since, she’s not sure how, she went back to sleep after the alarm on her phone went off and, when she awoke, she had to get ready in a rush, otherwise she would have missed the bus, and that’s no way to make yourself look nice, let alone to do your eyeliner properly. She didn’t even have time for a coffee.
Read more
Portico of Galician Literature 