Published in 1962, this short story collection foreshadows two other iconic 1960s works--by the Mozambican Honwana and the Angolan Vieira--in the way it invites its readers to consider a range of ethical issues at a watershed moment during the Salazar dictatorship in Portugal. It alternates between allegorical pieces, endowed with a fable-like quality, such as a modern reworking of the Three Kings biblical story, and more immediate first-person tales focusing on the formative experiences of an autobiographical narrator. Sophia, widely acknowledged as one of Portugal's greatest poets, perhaps...