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Beyond Tordesillas: New Approaches to Comparative Luso-Hispanic Studies is the first volume of its kind to be published in English. Bringing together young and established scholars, it seeks to consolidate the vital work being done on the connections between the Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking worlds on both sides of the Atlantic. The volume builds from an understanding that Iberian and Latin American cultures are inherently transoceanic—having engaged in earlier eras in parallel, and sometimes interconnected, colonization projects around the world and more recently in postcolonial evaluations of these practices and their legacies.
 
The jumping-off point for Beyond Tordesillas is the critic Jorge Schwartz’s evocative call to arms, “Down with Tordesillas!” In this groundbreaking essay, Schwartz looks to the imaginary line created by the Treaty of Tordesillas (1494), which divided the known world into Spanish and Portuguese spheres of influence, to stand in for generations of literary and cultural noncommunication between the Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking spheres, and their attendant academic disciplines. This volume’s contributions range topically across continents, from the Iberian Peninsula to Latin American countries. They also range across genres, with studies that analyze fictional narrative, music, performance, and visual culture. Beyond Tordesillas forcefully challenges the disciplinary—and indeed, arbitrary—boundaries that for too long have separated Hispanic and Luso-Brazilian studies.
 

This modest collection of short stories, written between 1946 and 1964, is the first by this influential Portuguese man of letters to be published in English. Their subjects often prominent historical figures, all are densely written, cerebral. The title story describes the tortured creative process of a famous 16th century Portuguese poet as he sets out to write his most celebrated poem. "A Night of Nativity" reports a fervent conversation between a Roman tribune and St. Paul. The whimsical "Sea of Stones" tells how the seventh century English monk, the Venerable Bede, forced the stones of an ancient Druid temple to speak. These 11 short stories are for the most part highly moralistic, at their best arguing the strict Catholic tenets of faith; less successful are the author's anguished attempts to describe the artistic temperament. Tantalizing by the promise they show, the short narratives are unfleshed, lacking the spark of animation. As a collection, with an informative foreword by the author's close colleague, they supplement our scant knowledge of this scholar and social activist.