Ponta do Sol on the Trails of Madeira’s Cultural Memory. Insular Identity in Two Novels in Perspective

Abstract

João Vieira Caetano and Guilherme Costa Ganança are Madeiran authors who write about different temporal spaces (18th century and 20th century, respectively), but about the same fictional space: Ponta do Sol. In their historical novels, among sociological, economic, political and ethnographic records, the authors portray two distinct periods that reveal a collective and Madeiran identity easily recognized by island readers. The protagonists of the two novels move in the space and in the conjecture of each era (some in the oppressive and abusive domain of “morgadios”, others in a post-World War II crisis), subject to the constraints of moral conduct, social prejudice and island idiosyncrasies which compel them to look beyond the sea, to other geographies where forced or voluntary exile may be a possibility to consider.

Keywords

Ponta do Sol; Literature; History; Identity; Emigration; Exile.