A revisiting of April 25 in the memorables by Lídia Jorge

Abstract

This study proposes an analysis of the novel Os Memoráveis, by Lídia Jorge, a work that revisits April 25, 1974, articulating memory, disenchantment, and the Portuguese democratic trajectory. The narrative is structured around a reporting team that interviews nine participants in the revolution, identified through a photograph taken at the restaurant Memories. The author intertwines different voices—those of the “memorables” and that of the journalist-narrator—highlighting how a historical event becomes inscribed in the subjectivities of different generations. The novel occupies an intermediate space between fiction and document by incorporating genres such as the interview and testimony, thereby challenging the boundaries of the traditional historical novel. The analysis, descriptive in nature and guided by the hermeneutic method, seeks to understand how the narrative performs a rewriting of history, questioning modes of representing the past and the relationship between memory and identity. Marked by a critical perspective on revolutionary ideals and their consequences, the work stands as a reflection on the persistence of history in the present and as an exercise against forgetting.