INTO MACAU

Plot

Fleeing a family with which he never identified himself, Fátimo - so called because he was born in the year of the Apparitions - competes for a teaching position at the Liceu Infante D. Henrique, in Macau, ending up staying almost all his life in that city that, divided into two apparently closed communities - the white and the Chinese -, still knew how to mix and bring together the best of both customs, generating a truly unique social atmosphere.

Sharing her time between school and books, the Portuguese Maria Augusta - with whom he has a facade wedding - and the Chinese Siu Lin, the «Little Lotus Flower» - for whom he has always had a forbidden passion -, the protagonist of The City of the End will, over the course of half a century, be a privileged witness to the slow decline of imperial power, conflicts with the Chinese community and, finally, the official handing over of the territory to the People's Republic of China in 1999. Aware that, with the collonies' independence, the end of the Portuguese empire was played in Macau, he decides to recount the history of Macau in a love novel alongside his own history - and neither of them is free from improbability, scandal, surprise and even violence. The City of the End is, therefore, the homage of Fátimo to his native language, the homeland that adopted him and, of course, the small lotus flower that made it blossom. And it is another notable novel by Miguel Real, which thus celebrates the 500 years of relations between Portugal and China.