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This article examines how the fiction of Henrique de Senna Fernandes constructs "lives" and modes of living in the territory of Macao under historical and political tensions, articulating politicization, patriarchy, expectations of "progress," and post-colonial problematics. Starting from the author's singular position as a "son of the land" (born in 1923 into a Macanese family with plural roots), the text argues that his writing—though often anchored in first-person short stories and novellas recalled from the post-war period—functions as a cultural chronicle of the almost-past, capable of revealing social continuities and epochal fractures. The methodology combines intrinsic literary reading with historical-cultural contextualization: the study observes configurations of power in gender relations, the narrative regimes of transmission (stories told, collected, and retold), and the manner in which certain images of modernization coexist with persistent hierarchies. It concludes that, by representing life in Macao before and after decisive turning points (the Japanese occupation, the instability of the 1960s, the 1974 Revolution, and the transition period), Senna Fernandes not only preserves local memory; he also exposes, through fictional means, the way in which politics and patriarchy organize everyday life, producing an implicit—and often ambivalent—critique of colonial narratives and the promises of development that succeeded them.
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This article examines how food functions as a vehicle for nostalgia and cultural preservation in Henrique de Senna Fernandes’s fiction, focusing on the role of cuisine in *A Trança Feiticeira*. Building from broader accounts of Macanese culinary history, the study situates “Cozinhaçã” as a frontier cuisine shaped by Portuguese adaptation and successive influences from Malay, Indian, African, and Chinese traditions. Methodologically, the article reads Senna Fernandes’s culinary references as textual markers of identity work: dishes, ingredients, and eating practices are treated not merely as atmospheric detail, but as narrative devices that stage memory, belonging, and the fragility of cultural continuity. The argument is that culinary discourse in the novel performs a dual task. On the one hand, it maps Macao’s historical position within oceanic and diasporic networks, using food to demonstrate mixture and reinvention. On the other, it mourns the loss—or threatened disappearance—of specific “home-town” recipes by linking them to family life, religious occasions, and communal gatherings. The article concludes that in Senna Fernandes’s writing, cuisine becomes an archive of sensory heritage, transforming everyday eating into a literary strategy for maintaining cultural uniqueness amid rapid social and political change.
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David Brookshaw's article analyzes Julian Lees's novel **The Fan Tan Players**, arguing that **Macao** constitutes the narrative's nuclear space, functioning simultaneously as the point of departure and return for its protagonists between 1928 and 1945. In light of comparison with Lusophone Macanese fiction—particularly authors such as **Rodrigo Leal de Carvalho** and **Henrique de Senna Fernandes**—the study contends that Lees mobilizes familiar configurations (geographical and chronological mobility; the presence of "White" refugees in post-Bolshevik-revolution China) yet reconfigures the types and the tone: in contrast to figures marked by melancholy and fragility, the novel privileges a **romantic regime of persistent love**, in a register more attuned to hope and attachment. Methodologically, the article proceeds through **interpretive and contextual reading**, highlighting the way in which Macao's **cultural topography**—sensations, social habits, and linguistic diversity—is worked through a choral cast of expatriates, friendships, and communal practices. Brookshaw concludes that the title alludes to the local imaginary of gambling (fan tan) above all as a **metaphor of contingency** (luck, coincidence, and probability), while the representation of Macao as a "home" relatively less hierarchical than Hong Kong simultaneously evinces an adherence to colonial myths and an implicit critique of the dynamics of prejudice.
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The central focus of the article is an interpretation of Brian Castro’s novel,
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- Journal Article (4)