Unfinished Romance of Laborinho Lucio “The Ark of Noahmia” arrives on the 19th

O posthumous and unfinished novel by Álvaro Laborinho Lúcio, “The Ark of Noahmia”, written “until the last hours of life”, arrives at the bookstores on the 19th, gathering characters from universal literature in a narrative about memory, identity and love.

Published by Quetzal, just over a year after the death of Álvaro Laborinho Lúcio, at the age of 83, the novel retrieves characters from previous works and joins them with figures from the universal literature, constituting another testimony of the “sensitivity”, the “feeling of humor” and the “intelligence” of the author, according to the publisher.

The story begins at the Frankfurt Book Fair, where Otília, a character in the novel “The Man Who Wrote Tiles”, walks among the books, confronted with doubts about his own identity.

The protagonist wonders whether it is the Otília created by Álvaro Laborinho Lúcio, granddaughter of João Francisco Corelli, or the homonymous character of "The Elective Affinities", by Goethe, in love with Eduardo, Carlota's husband, as the editor reveals in the synopsis.

This overlap of identities leads the narrative to a reflection on the boundaries between fiction and reality, in a novel that crosses characters and authors of different literary eras and universes.

Otília then returns to the Shelter of Santa Dimphna, a kind of fictional home where writers and characters of the universal literature coexist, being received by a William Shakespeare “tagarel and mocker”, according to Quetzal.

From this reunion, long conversations about literature, theater, painting and Noah's Ark result, including an interpretation that had been transmitted to Shakespeare by Father António Vieira.

In the Shelter there are other figures of literature and thought, such as Sigmund Freud, Raskólnikov and Ivan Karamazov, characters of Dostoevsky, Emma Bovary, by Gustave Flaubert, Heathcliff, by Emily Brontë, and Mrs. Dalloway, by Virginia Woolf.

It is also in this space, inhabited by writers and characters who seem to have escaped the works that gave them existence, which arises Noahmia, the new director of the Shelter, for whom Shakespeare is in love.

With 168 pages, “The Ark of Noahmia” is presented by Quetzal as a novel about the power of imagination and love, which resorts to humor, farce and the mechanisms of literary creation itself to discuss memory and identity.

Dedicated “to all who are here”, the book is the last work of fiction by Laborinho Lúcio, who died on October 23, 2025.

“Metaliterary, sometimes with fake contours, this novel leads us to the last message of Álvaro Laborinho Lúcio: it is for art, passion and love that is worth living”, adds the publisher.

The launch is scheduled for November 21, at 4:00 p.m., in the Cultural Scope Room of El Corte Inglés, in Lisbon, with presentation by Guilherme d’Oliveira Martins.

Born in Nazareth on December 1, 1941, Álvaro Laborinho Lúcio was a magistrate, university professor, Minister of Justice, Member of the Assembly of the Republic and Judge Counsellor of the Supreme Court of Justice.

He was also deputy attorney general, director of the Center for Judiciary Studies, founding member of the Portuguese Association for Victim Support and doctor ‘honoris causa’ in Education Sciences from the University of Minho.

In literature, he published the novels “O Chamador”, “O Beco da Liberdade”, “O Man Who Wrote Tiles” and “The Shadows of an Azinheira”, in addition to “A Vida na Selva”, a work between autobiography and essay.