Os romances infantojuvenis de António Mota

This essay studies the themes and style of António Mota' juvenile novels. In these books, life appears as a permanent and plural challenge, to which every character, using his individuality and freedom, responds like an actor who moves in a familiar and cultural complex context. The duality and the characters' inner tension go through the narratives but there is always a optimistic vision of life. The narrator, managing and respecting the voices that say the irrefutable proposition that life is hard and unfair, opposes to his own doubts and fears a kind of utopia: life is only worthwhile if it is the constant invention of an ideal. Desistance and low spirits are followed by a reaction, a movement of energy and a (re)construction.