the goan I network
PANAJI
The life of Sita Valles, who was executed without trial when she was just 26 years old, is captured by Portuguese journalist Leonor Figueiredo in a book on Sita’s life entitled “Sita Valles : A revolutionary until Death.” This book came out in the Portuguese in 2010, and now, eight years later, the English translator of the book, David Smith, a Texan with no formal training in the Portuguese, is at the Goa Arts and Literature Festival (GALF) to launch the book in English.
Sita Valles - a name practically unheard of in Goa, but a strong young woman with Goan roots, who created waves in political circles in Angola back in the 1960s and 70s.
Says Smith about the book he translated, “The biggest difficulty was context. Figueiredo’s Portuguese book was aimed at a Portuguese audience who knew about the political happenings in Angola.” On the other hand, the English reader in Goa would find it harder to grasp the context.
But the books publisher Frederick Noronha from Goa 1556, explains that the Goan reader has nothing to worry about, as the book reads like a “Bad Bollywood plot” and has a very straightforward style.
To put the book together, author Figueiredo interviewed around 30 people close to Sita Valles, and even quotes both of Sita’s parents. Many Goans would also be familiar with Sita’s brother Edgar, and cousin - Cortalim MLA Alina Saldanha, who has written the book’s afterward.
Sita, an activist and student leader, paid with her life for being a revolutionary, and ruined her family to an extent. Her parents were completely cut up about their young daughter’s death. (She left behind a newly born son, just a couple of months old.)
It is unclear whether her death was reported in the Angolan papers at the time, but there was never an official body count and it is believed that over 20,000 people were either killed, or simply disappeared in Angola during the post-independence revolution. The government therefore never issued a formal death certificate for Sita, and her parents eventually got a “fake” certificate based on her presumed death. According to the death certificate, Sita died of a heart attack.
To learn more about the short and intense life of a Goan with a passion for life, visit the ICG, Dona Paula, today (December 7) at the Mandovi Hall, where Smith and Noronha will be in conversation with Suhila Sawant Mendes at 2:05pm.
