Cirrus@Austlit

'A coming-of-age story set in Angola in the period leading up to the colony’s independence, Saudade focuses on a Goan immigrant family caught between complicity in Portuguese rule, and their dependence on the Angolans who are their servants. The title (saudade means ‘melancholy’ in Portuguese) speaks to the longing for homeland that haunts its characters, and especially the young girl who is the book’s protagonist and narrator. Suneeta Peres da Costa’s novella captures with intense lyricism the difficult relationship between the daughter and her mother, and the ways in which their intimate world opens up questions about domestic violence, the legacies of Portuguese slavery and the end of empire. The young woman’s intellectual awakening unfolds into a growing awareness of the lies of colonialism, and the violent political ruptures that ultimately lead to her father’s death, and their exile.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'A mother asks her daughter, "Do you remember your father being a sad man?" This question releases recollections of childhood, of the loves and tensions in the triangular relationship of child and parents. 'Watermark' explores - through differing prisms of memory - a moment of disintegration in this relationship. The judges of the Ian Reed Competition for young playwrights called this prize-winning work 'compelling and poignant - powerfully suggestive and knife-sharp.' Suneeta Peres da Costa paints a remarkable and compassionate audio picture of a pivotal event in three people's lives.'

Source: ABC website, www.abc.net.au (Sighted: 30/05/2007)