Newspaper "Diário de Notícias", 17th August 1991 (about «Anno Domini 1348»)
"It's a fascinating novel, but besides that it's also a well documented study about the medieval sense of time and about Sintra (...). But none of this seems like a 'masters lesson'. On the contrary, all of this is integrated in the
story without any effort at all. A novel that deserves our attention."
-Alice Vieira
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Newspaper "Jornal de Letras", 23th June 1992 (about «Anno Domini 1348»)
"(...) It is worth to read this book and think about the mechanisms of dialogue between History and Fiction which the book proposes with simplicity. This book deserves our attention for the elegance of the writing, for the accurate sensibility of the language, for the criativity of the narrative, for the wisdom of the interpretative schemes."
-Manuel Frias Martins
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Book of literary critics "The innocent darkness", 2000 (About the work of the author)
"The language has an exemplar contention, with an ancestral style that knows its own limits; the images have an appeling simplicity with their evocative wealth; the balance of the multiple speeches is seductive for its ressemblence, for the carefull irony, for the dramatic familyarity of the questioning of the 'self'."
-Manuel Frias Martins
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Newspaper "Jornal de Letras", 24th. January 2001 (about «The king sheppard»)
"If Sérgio Luís de Carvalho's premiere has a writer with the novel 'Anno Domini 1348', had showned us an unusual literary quality (...) and if his second novel, 'The hours of Monsaraz', had showned us a notorious maturity, today we can confirm that, with this new novel, the author consolidates and developes -as to the style, the caracters, the development of the story and the description of the ambience- the maturity allready reached."
-Miguel Real
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Book of literary critics "Generation of the nineties - Novels and society in contemporary Portugal", 2001 (about the author)
"In 'The hours of Monsaraz', Sérgio Luís de Carvalho does not want to tell us how man should be, or how History should have been (...). It is not a pedagogical literature or a highly critical literature, it's simply 'literature'. In Sérgio Luís de Carvalho a text recreates the jewish world of Alentejo in the 16th century. This way the world becomes a text. A text that teaches us more about the reality of this century, than all the historical studies."
-Miguel Real
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Literary Review "Os meus livros", January 2004 (about «The rivers from Babylon»)
" 'The rivers from Babylon' (...), the very best I've read in December; or, our destiny separated and unified."
-Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa
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Newspaper "Jornal de Letras", February 2004 (about «The rivers of Babylon»
"So 'The Rivers of Babylon' makes the historical and tragical experience of the outmost banality of the daily life, strenghened by the reticences of the beginning and the end of the novel, and for the anonymity of all the characters (...). So here we are facing a sceptical universe, sceptical but lucid and wise, as the last story shows us so clearly."
-Miguel Real
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“Caminhos”, May 2006 (about ‘Retrato de S. Jerónimo no seu estúdio’)
"Retrato de S. Jerónimo no seu estúdio” impresses us for its narrative accuracy and indescribable plot where the portraits of four characters are built, and where the portrait of the reader is built across the reading. Sérgio Luís de Carvalho shows us, in 289 pages, how we can touch the past and how we can hold the secrets of Time."
-Teresa Sá Couto
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Magazine “Os meus livros”, March 2006 (about ‘Retrato de S. Jerónimo no seu estúdio’)
In the balance between the two [main] characters, that are, after all, possible reflections of one another, the time of History is built in a novel upon which we must meditate.
-Sara Figueiredo Costa
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Newspaper “Jornal de Letras”, August 2006 (about ‘Retrato de S. Jerónimo no seu estúdio’)
“Retrato de S. Jerónimo no seu estúdio”, shows us a secure, specific and struturated ficcional universe, that individualizes [the author] in the modern panorama of the portuguese literature, and, at the same time, makes him a very unique author, far away from fashionable novels.”
-Miguel Real
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Newspaper “Jornal de Sintra”, April 2006 (about ‘Retrato de S. Jerónimo no seu estúdio’)
The only Portuguese living writer that manipulates the language this way, the style that here emerges, if on one hand individualizes aesteticly [SLC’s] novels, on the other hand creates inevitable resistance in the average reader. But finally, this average reader, once used to this kind of aestetics and sintaxis, enjoys a rare pleasure with the reading.
-Filomena Oliveira
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Magazine “Inatel”, June 2006 (about ‘Retrato de S. Jerónimo no seu estúdio’)
"In this book a genius narrative plot is contrived from a famous painting that represents Saint Jerome in his working and meditating study."
-José Jorge Letria
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Magazine “Os meus livros”, July 2007, about “Os peregrinos sem fé"
"It’s easy to see how frequent it is that the historical novel is more used to exhibit facts about a certain period, than to the literary labour. Fortunately it’s not the case of Sérgio Luís de Carvalho that in “Os peregrinos sem fé”, based on a careful investigation, makes a real narrative practice around some essential subjects related to the history of Mankind and to each particular person. "
-Sara Figueiredo Costa
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Magazine of Fundação Gulbenkian”, 2000, about “El-Rei Pastor”
The medieval writings in this novel are untouchable in its stylistic refinement, in its construction. This is a complex and remarkable literary work, of a great creative labour.
-Fernanda Botelho
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Magazine “Inatel”, July 2007, about "Os peregrinos sem fé"
"[It must be referred, from the publisher Campo das Letras] 'Os peregrinos sem fé', by Sérgio Luís de Carvalho, a writer with a consistent work that deserves the highest attention."
-José Jorge Letria
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Nwespaper “Diário de Notícias”, 3rd January 2009
"A book with a maturity of writing and a narrative skill that captivate us since the beginning. If there are words worth a thousand images, Sérgio Luís de Carvalho certainly knows how to choose them."
Carla Maia de Almeida, in Diário (3-1-2009)
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Blog "Orgia Literária”, January 2009
"In a style at the same time delicate and vigorous, Sérgio Luís de Carvalho brings “O Retábulo de Genebra”. He offers magnificent and picturesque narrative decors, plenty of synaesthesias and silences - those silences where remembrance and art melted- and, in the art of these writings, those silences make the sounds, the colours and all kind of sensations explode. (…) Excellent, Sérgio Luís de Carvalho makes us discover the process of writing as an inner pilgrimage, in a seductive metaphorical process. (…) A very ancient Iberian soul that we can find in the Portuguese literature, in which Sérgio is an illustrious representative."
Teresa Sá Couto
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Newspaper "Jornal de Letras", December 2008
"Although frequently practiced as a fashion that everybody assumes the right to celebrate, hardly the Portuguese historical novel had achieved, in the last decade, an aesthetical quality with such brightness as in
“O Retábulo de Genebra”."
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Book of literary critics “Itinerários”, 2009 about “O retábulo de Genebra”
"The voice of a master of the romanesque literature - Sérgio Luís de Carvalho - is heard in this novel."
Annabela Rita
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Newspaper “Jornal de Sintra”, November 2009
"O Retábulo de Genebra: Art as liturgy!"
Filomena Oliveira
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Newspaper "Jornal de Letras", November 2009
“Captain Blanc’s destiny” is for sure, the best Portuguese novel about the Portuguese participation in World War I”
Miguel Real
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“7Leitores”, blog, April 2010, about “O destino do capitão Blanc”
[Sérgio Luís de Carvalho] knew how
to make his homework seriously. (…)
To know about the times of the
Republic through literature is a
very enriching exercise. Doing it
through Sérgio’s pen is an excellent
experience to learn about Portugal
and the Portuguese a little less
than a hundred years ago, so far
away and yet so close to us.
José
Fanha
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“Jornal de Letras”, September 2011 (about “O segredo de Barcarrota”)
With a composition that thickens, chapter after chapter, the climate of terror that existed in Barcarrota in the middle of the 16th century, thus creating the ambience of suspense characteristic of a good novel, o Segredo de Barcarrota (,,,) combines in full harmony a multiplicity of individual voices, each one with its particular quid…
Miguel Real
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