This double issue of Review of Culture devotes a large part of its space to Camilo Pessanha in memory of the sixtieth anniversary of the publication of his collection of poems Clepsidra. RC has already featured his work in previous issues but in this issue we adopt a multi-faceted approach based on a variety of records: literary, sentimental, pictorial, civil and official. By doing this we hope to provide a full length portrait of Macau's eccentric, genial poet alongside an in-depth image of the shadowy psychological environment he inhabited. Thus we build up an image of his private life, the stage on which he played out both the significant and insignificant scenes of his daily existence. Some of the contents are based on selections from Daniel Pires' book Homenagem a Camilo Pessanha published by Instituto Cultural de Macau and Instituto Português do Oriente. There are also valuable contributions from the Review's editor Luís Sá Cunha and Carlos Morais José pointing, for the first time, to the relationship between men and the space they inhabit. There is no doubt that these articles throw open new avenues in the interpretation of the poet's work.
To place the poet in his context, we present a selection of photographs of Macau during the 1920s, including the image for the cover.
The position of women is featured with a look at the values of traditional Chinese society, values which lasted into the twentieth century. There are articles by Ana Maria Amaro (who, by looking at the world of women in times past, throws some light on the origins of the Macanese) and by Maria Ondina Braga who looks at the insurmountable drama of Chinese women subjected to the yoke of it being "better to raise geese than daughters".
The survival of the Portuguese language in the East is examined by Professor Somaratna and Maria Isabel Tomás with particular emphasis on the creole languages of Sri Lanka.
Finally, we have a portrait of George Chinnery, the artist who marked Macau in the early nineteenth century, drawn by Robin Hutcheon, a specialist who has written a book on his life and works (Chinnery, Formasia, 1989). Mr Hutcheon recently retired from a brilliant career including a sixteen-year stint as editor in the prestigious field of journalism in Hong Kong.
Carlos Alberto dos Santos Marreiros
President of the Cultural Institute of Macau
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