Paul Melo e Castro

Paul Melo e Castro is a British scholar and academic at the University of Glasgow, known for contributing to editing and translating multiple works, particularly Indo-Portuguese literature. His area of specialisation is Lusophone literature, film and visual culture. He has contributed significantly to the understanding of Goan writing in Portuguese of the 20th century, and translating long-lost works of that era.

Books

Castro has translated and edited two book-length works, Lengthening Shadows: An Anthology of Goan Short Stories translated from the Portuguese (Volume I and II). He is also the author of Shades of Grey: 1960s Lisbon in Novel, Film and Photography. (London: MHRA Texts and Dissertations, 2011.) In 2016, he and Prof Helder Garmes of the University of São Paulo in Brazil collaborated to edit an undiscovered novel by the late Epitacio Pais, of Batim (Goa), called Preia Mar (High Tide). Along with the Argentinian professor based in Brazil Cielo G Festino, Melo e Castro has edited the book A House of Many Mansions: Goan Literature in Portuguese (Under the People Tree, Margao, 2017), ISBN 9789386301628. In it the editors argue that:

Goan writing in Portuguese has had a long and chequered history and at present is all but unknown in the region that inspired it, and by the descendants of those who produced it. This collection, originally published as a special edition of the reputed literary magazine Muse India, gathers translations of short stories, poems and extracts of novels and sets them alongside critical articles that aim to open up this body of writing for a contemporary Anglophone reader in Goa and further afield. Though often (but not exclusively) produced from a position of social advantage, and predominantly by Catholics, this branch of Goan literature contains many viewpoints on the history, identity and society of a territory that, while colonised by Portugal for hundreds of years, has always negotiated its place in the world in a wider Indian context. In this house of writing there are indeed many mansions.

Translations

Paul Melo e Castro, British scholar and academic at the University of Glasgow, at a Pensando Goa meeting, a scholarly network from Brazil which studies Goan literature.

Outlook magazine praised a translation by Melo e Castro of Vimala Devi's long unnoticed-in-Goa book Monsoon, calling it a "brilliant translation... and supplemented with a rich glossary, which is a significant aid to understanding the multiple subjectivities within the text."

In 2023, Melo e Castro brought back to readers in Goa, the short stories of Elsa da Rocha, titled in English as Life Stories, which were originally written across different texts in Portuguese.

Other writing

He has also contributed many book chapters and journal articles. His work has gained notice due to his translations of often-forgotten Goan short stories written decades ago in the Portuguese language, which is currently not much used in Goa, the former capital of the Portuguese Empire in the East.

He is known to maintain the Archive of Goan Writing in Portuguese blog.

Melo e Castro's writing has been published in Portuguese Studies, Journal of Romance Studies, Studies in European Cinema, InterDISCIPLINARY Journal of Portuguese Diaspora Studies, Hispanic Research Journal, Kritika Kultura, among others.

In 2019, he edited the book Colonial and Post-Colonial Goan Literature in Portuguese.

Some of his works which throw new insights on Goan writing in Portuguese include include:

• Paul Melo e Castro, ‘Ananta Rau Sar Dessai’s Radio Days’, in Mundo Goa, Vivek Menezes and Nigel Britto (eds.), Panjim, India: Sinbal’s Book House, 2014, pp. 202–208.
• Paul Melo e Castro, 'Dictatorship, Liberation, Transition in the Short Fiction of Three Portuguese-Language Goan Authors: Alberto de Menezes Rodrigues, Ananta Rau Sar Dessai and Telo de Mascarenhas', Journal of Romance Studies, 13/2 (2013), pp. 1–18.

Background

A profile of the academic-author mentions Castro was born in west London, but his father was a descendente (Goan-born of ethnic Portuguese extraction) who left Goa as a "young boy" in 1961, when Portuguese rule ended there. Castro heard stories of Goa recounted by family members. He has been described as the "son of a Portuguese father and British mother".

Professionally, Dr Paul Melo e Castro is Lecturer (Hispanic Studies) at the School of Modern Languages and Cultures, University of Glasgow. Earlier, he was lecturer in the Portuguese language at the School of Languages, Cultures and Societies of the University of Leeds.

External links

• Web page at the University of Leeds
• In Search of the Story (Navhind Times)
• The Times of Paul de (sic) Melo e Castro (The Goan)
• [Goanet] Has Goan Writing in Portuguese been sufficiently studied or got adequately noticed? Not at all...