A Life Framed: Serafim Alves de Carvalho's <em>Emigrar… Emigrar: as contas do meu rosário</em> (1986)

Abstract

Published in Portugal in December 1986, by the Secretaria de Estado das Comunidades Portuguesas/Centro de estudos, as part of the series ‘Portugueses de Longe Escrevem’ series, Serafim Alves de Carvalho's Emigrar… Emigrar: as contas do meu rosario (1986) emerges at a particularly significant moment in Portuguese history. By focusing its close reading of Carvalho's account on four areas of analytical ‘framing’, to use the term proposed by Paul Longley Arthur, the article will contribute to existing critical studies of this autobiography by nuancing how Carvalho's self is constructed in the final, published text. In so doing, the article argues that the construction of Carvalho's self, and the content in Carvalho's account, including the contradictions and inconsistencies present in the final text, was constrained by publication aims.