Rita Azevedo Gomes’ cinematographic oeuvre is a meeting place for literature and cinema. She worked with Agustina Bessa-Luís on a number of occasions. The last was on the film A Portuguesa [The Portuguese], which was based on a short story of the same name by Robert Musil, with dialogues written by Agustina Bessa-Luís. In this ‘Register’ the film director and screenwriter evokes the rich life and approach to death of the writer of A Sibila [The Sybil]. ‘And now, it is in a state somewhere between fervour and panic that I am writing here, following only my own memories, in my search for Agustina.’ As Rita recalls what she found in her and heard from her, she paints us a personal portrait of this exceptional author and her ‘infinite writing, this blanket that covers and discovers us all’.

At the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in Paris, curated by Helena de Freitas, a new exhibition places the work of Rui Chafes and Alberto Giacometti side by side and head to head. The magnetic force of attraction between the two bodies of work is clear to the viewer, in what brings them together and what keeps them apart. Nicolao Federico, writer, philosopher and curator, is familiar with the work of both Giacometti and Chafes and writes about the artists and the exhibition in which they come together.

In this ‘View’, the Greek author Nikos Pratsinis writes about Heraklion, the capital of Crete, the island of the Minotaur and the Labyrinth. Here we find past and present, gods and humans, land and sea, mythology and poetry, history and geography, architecture and cuisine and personal and cultural memories. Pratsinis is a writer and translator. He lived in Portugal for a few years and, together with the poet Joaquim Manuel Magalhães, translated the prose and poems of Konstandinos Kavafis and selected poems by Yorgos Seferis into Portuguese.

The work of Álvaro Lapa (Évora, 1939 – Porto, 2006) developed, within the context of the Portugal of the 1960s, at the margins of the dominant cultural references, declining an alternative culture (one deriving from the whole historical inheritance – from the Romantic to the Surrealist movements — and the concrete work of the Beat Generation).

In an essay about infamy – the opposite of fame – entitled ‘The Life of Infamous Men’, Michel Foucault wrote that the infamous are anonymous, they are consigned to oblivion, but notwithstanding, their obscure and unhappy existences provide interesting narrative material. Included among infamous men are writers with no oeuvre or literature to their name. Éric Marty, an essayist and professor of literature, explores the mysterious relationship between literature and infamy based on this work by Foucault.

In this ‘Book of Hours’, Lise de la Salle talks of her profession as a pianist, sharing her daily intimacy with music and reflecting on what it means to her. Born in France, this pianist, who has been honoured with the most distinguished awards for her performances and recordings, has played with prestigious orchestras and eminent conductors such as Lorin Maazel, Sir Neville Marriner and Sir Charles Mackerras. Speaking of her concerts, she says, ‘All those hours of hard work, doubts, impatience and questions make sense at that precise moment of absolute communication with my audience.’

Jean Starobinski, who died last March in Geneva, his hometown, has been described as the greatest literary critic of the 20th century. But ‘literary critic’ does not do justice to this man who held degrees in classical studies and medicine (he worked as a hospital intern for five years). He showed great insight in his analysis of the history of ideas, literature and art, and practiced thematic reading and interpretation like no other. The history and representations of melancholy recurrently appear in his work, as mentioned by António Guerreiro, whose text recovers part of an interview given by ‘Staro’, as his friends called him, during a conference in Porto in July, 1990. Author of a brilliant study on Rousseau, he left a lasting mark on 18th-century studies. It was mainly from that era’s soil and subsoil that he took the mask motif, which radiates throughout his work and attaches itself to his own face. This is shown by Barbara Chitussi, who continues here the interpretation of Starobinski’s work initiated in an essay entitled Jean Starobinski e la conoscibilità della maschera.

‘Life is a game’: this is how we may state the principle that determines a generalised gamification of the world we live in. Clare Siegel, a professor at the Paul Valéry University of Montpellier, whose work has focused on the relationship between video games and the visual arts, writes about this issue, which invokes the notion of homo ludens.

An essential task of our historical consciousness is to think about the time we live in, and to present it as a complex unity for which we have no name. The evident manifestations of the age and its less visible but distinctive traits are the topics of five texts that make up the special feature of this inaugural issue.

An essential task of our historical consciousness is to think about the time we live in, and to present it as a complex unity for which we have no name. The evident manifestations of the age and its less visible but distinctive traits are the topics of five texts that make up the special feature of this inaugural issue.