The year is 1961, the month of May. In Portuguese Goa, in the village of Loutolim, on the west coast of India, Dona Isabella prepares for the unexpected return of her eldest and favourite son, Paulo, who is studying law in Coimbra, Portugal. On the very day of his return to Goa, Paulo barely escapes being killed by a group of masked guerrillas, seeking to overthrow the colonial Portuguese regime. Paulo’s life and that of his rich and traditional family, takes a tragic turn with the military takeover of Goa after 451 years of Portuguese rule…
This well-crafted story unfolds like a canvas, suffused with a profound sensibility, and a sense of foreboding.
Forty eight years later Goans are still sorting out the tangled web of
their identities and allegiances, particularly those of the Catholic heritage. In this… novel The Sting of Peppercorns, Antonio Gomes, an esteemed cardiologist within the medical community, brilliantly illuminates complex strands of a citizenry, unsettled by various forces foreign and domestic.
The characters of Senhor Afonso, Dona Isabela, Dona Rosita, Paulo, Amanda, Roberto, Carmina, Mari, Pedru, Winnie, Captain Antonio Borda de Mar, Tulsi, Tucaram, Angelina de Tor, Ana Sofia, and Uma – all play a critical role in each others life in baking a peculiar Goan “bebinca,” which, either one learns to live with all its contradictions, and charming complexity, or one engages into an exercise of self-torture to un-layer the centuries old “camadas da alma goesa.” …. Antonio Gomes, a medical doctor with specialization in cardiology, a poet, and a novelist, treats The Sting of Peppercorns with art and surgical precision. It is an engaging reading, which will sooth the restless soul of the Goan at home and in Diaspora. –Basilio Monteiro, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Division of Mass Communication, Journalism, TV and Film at St. John’s College of Professional Studies and a Vincentian Research Fellow.
