Nelson de Matos. The Baron of the Portuguese Edition

Portugal never had a boom in its literature, at best had a tcharan!, Some illusions and some household altars, a few designed noble, but there was a time when there were tables everywhere, in the cafes, in some offices where the editions of books or magazines could aspire to scandal, agitation. Before the business entrance and consumption submit to it all the possibilities of daydream, before the drums for the masses to handle silence, there was this fierce, conspiracy margin. There was above all the strategic figure of the editor of these funds generals, who are concerned with the cartography of the inner regions, to draw lines for mental dispersion. Nelson de Matos was the last Baron in this picture, a young man who even entertains literary aspirations, and walked through the cafes to see if he won crest, while rehearsing the singing of Rooster in literary criticism, all things that would be forgotten, without leaving much memory. He began in Arcadia, passed through Moraes at a time when he was already in decay, and after the death of Snu Abecassis, who had edited his debut novel, bought Don Quixote, which directed for 23 years, until he sold to the Spanish group Planeta in 2004, at a time when he was seen as the main Portuguese publisher. Then he went out, was still in Amber, before he created a publisher with his own name, and who soon gave the donkeys in the water. At so many health problems had begun, and he was quickly forgotten, having died last Sunday, 79 years old, victim of breathing difficulties.

As usual, it is common to invent doors, to hold them, being in the shadow, to honor the editors, it is necessary to make the list of the authors who edited, and for him passed names like José Cardoso Pires, José Gomes Ferreira, Nuno Bragança, Ruy Belo, Manuel Alegre, José Saramago and António Lobo Antunes … From other editors, who made the discoveries and fit him then to pick them up and promote his success. Even edited two titles from Saramago, a storybook Object almost (1978), and a novel, PAINTING AND CALIGHER MANUAL (1977), and although I liked the next novel, Groundeddid not believe that he sold. Published in 1980, it would eventually be the book that changed the winds to this writer, who was then 58 years old, and then launched in extraordinary rise, then published four novels that decisively raised the bar of Portuguese literature – Convent Memorialin 1982, The year of the death of Ricardo Reisin 1984, The stone raftin 1986 and History of the Siege of Lisbonin 1989. Only Agustina did not tremble, and continued impaired in her nineteenth century, to measure with Balzac and Dostoevski. And it is important to mention these two names since they seemed to be the only weight absences and that prevented Nelson de Matos from complaining the monarch of the Portuguese literary edition. Once founded in 1965, they were the heirs of Snu Abecassis who sought him to propose to assume the fate of the publisher, who, at that time, had a great prestige, but that it was up to him, especially for a strong bet on the graphic element, giving him a more in line with the sobriety and distinction of the major European publishers, being his main reference Gaston.

Born on November 25, 1945, he began working in the media in the 1960s, in the newspapers Amadora News, Republic and Lisbon Diary. He was one of the founding partners and a collaborator since the first issue of the magazine and, then, Editora & etc., whose roots retreat to 1967. It was a little by chance that he saw his fate tied to edition, and when he earned his life in an insurance company, trying to free himself to dedicate herself to writing in 1974, he was invited by one of the administrators of this financial group to take the direction of Arcadia, which also belongs to them. But it was already in Moraes, where he went to replace Pedro Tamen, who had in the meantime had been invited to the Gulbenkian Foundation’s administration, and who handed him the editor’s destination, which began working with the Portuguese authors and, privileging these relationships, was defined as an authors editor and not books.