Intersected identities: História do Cerco de Lisboa and Geschichte der Belagerung von Lissabon

Abstract

It is well known that the novel The History of the Siege of Lisbon undertakes a revision of the origin of Portuguese identity by revealing the fragile historical fundament in the sense of a culture’s hybridity. This study argues that in this story the problematic search for ‘pure’ historical origin is intertwined with the search for ‘pure’ text. By analyzing the dense intertextual net of Raimundo Silva’s doubtful and creative proof-reading it becomes evident that it is less a question of proof-reading than of translating that is at stake in this historiographic metafiction. From this perspective the adventure of reading/writing turns out to be a question of criss-crossed identity that is extended to the novel’s reader: in the case of its translation into German, the new text has to tackle with the reader’s cultural affinity with the Crusaders.