Description
- Abstract:
- This study explores the life and legendary status of Manuel Zora, a Portuguese immigrant in Provincetown, Massachusetts. The author first encountered Zora in the research notes of biographer Louis Sheaffer originally gathered for a study of playwright Eugene O'Neill. He uses maritime records, genealogical data, and other documents to piece together the life of this fabled fisherman and "ultra professional rum-runner" who operated the 38-foot boat Mary Ellen during the Prohibition era, successfully evading the Coast Guard through his expertise at sea. Monteiro also suggests that Zora may have served as a real-life precursor to the fictional grandfather character, John Joseph Carvalho, in Frank X. Gaspar's novel Leaving Pico, illustrating the deep influence of Portuguese maritime figures on regional literature.
Citation
Monteiro, George,
"Captain Manuel Zora, Provincetown"
(2016).
Gávea-Brown: A Bilingual Journal of Portuguese-North American Letters and Studies.
Brown Digital Repository. Brown University Library.
https://doi.org/10.26300/bhgy-6q67
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Gávea-Brown: A Bilingual Journal of Portuguese-North American Letters and Studies
...Gávea-Brown: A Bilingual Journal of Portuguese-North American Letters and Studies (ISSN: 2641-0400) is published annually by the Department of Portuguese and Brazilian Studies at Brown University, and made possible with support from the Luso-American Development Foundation (FLAD). The journal …