Romano, Luis

▪ Cape Verdean author

byname of  Luis Romano Madeira de Melo  

born June 10, 1922, Santo Antão, Cape Verde Islands

      Cape Verdean poet, novelist, and folklorist who has written in both Portuguese and Cape Verdean Creole.

      Romano lived in both Senegal and Morocco before settling, in 1962, in Brazil. Though a trained mechanical and electrical engineer, he worked as a coal miner, public functionary, carpenter, tobacco hand, and salt worker.

      Romano's writings include Famintos (1962; “The Famished”), a novel influenced structurally and thematically by fiction from the Brazilian Northeast. It is a sociorealistic novel, portraying in detail the hardships of life in the Cape Verde Islands. A volume of his poetry, Clima (1963; “Climate”), criticizes Portuguese exploitation. Renascença de uma civilização no Atlântico médio (1967; “Renaissance of a Civilization in the Middle of the Atlantic”) is a collection of poems and short stories based primarily on folklore. His poetry signals understanding and racial harmony but, according to some critics, presents misleading stereotypes of Africans. His bilingual text of poems and stories (in Portuguese and Cape Verdean Creole) entitled Negrume/Lzimparin (1973; “Dusk”) was one of the first works to be written completely in the Cape Verdean language. Romano also collaborated on several journals, including Vertice, Ocidente, Cultura (I), and Cabo Verde.

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