An author for all seasons: João Almino’s work in progress

Abstract

This essay analyses As cinco estações do amor, João Almino’s third novel, published in 2001. A renowned essayist, with an important body of work on political and ethical issues, since 1988 with the publication of Idéias para onde passar o fim do mundo, Almino has been producing a solid and coherent fictional work, which comprises Samba-enredo, a novel published in 1994. This essay aims at answering the following questions: “Is it possible to find a common thread in Almino’s three novels?” An even more ambitious question: “is it possible to discern indistinctly points of contact between his theoretical imagination of a essayist and his fictional reflection of a novelist?” Two answers are proposed. On the one hand, a permanent process of experiments with the narrator’s constitutes Almino’s fictional ground. On the other hand, the author seems to understand literature as a special form of thinking: literature is thinking in action; literature is philosophy that never stops thinking. Finally, the concept of “interlegibility” is proposed as a theoretical contribution arising from the reading of Almino’s novels