Dark Stones

Book excerpt: Bringing to life his countrymen's daily struggles with the sea, struggles carried out against the dark-stoned background of their homeland, novelist Dias de Melo tells the collective story of Azorean seamen at a moment of great change toward the end of the nineteenth century. Confronted with increasing economic hardship and social and political tensions, whalers faced the choice of continuing to eke out a living at home or forsaking their boats for the shores of America. This expanded Tagus Press edition features Gregory McNab's masterful 1988 translation of Dark Stones and a new introduction from Maria João Dodman. As an insider from the island of Pico, Dias de Melo writes in a realistic style that is passionate and forceful, yet tenacious, without ever losing certainty and control.