Reading and biographical singularity: the case of the portuguese publisher Vitor Silva Tavares

Abstract

This paper starts from one of Paulo Freire’s relevant principle, according to which “the critical understanding of the act of reading […] is not a mere decoding of the written word, or of the written language, but rather it anticipates and extends itself into an intelligence of the world. The reading of the world precedes the reading of the word; hence, the ulterior reading of the word cannot exist without a continuing reading of the world” (FREIRE, 1981, p. 9). From this starting point, I will attempt an analysis of the first years (until adolescence) of the process of social construction of a specific individual reader, namely Vitor Silva Tavares (1937-2015), who led the historical publishing house &etc since 1974. Silva Tavares lived his childhood in a non-cultivated environment (he had few books at home). Having abandoned formal schooling early on, he ended up against all odds as a key figure within the field of literary publishing in Portugal in the second half of the twentieth century. Having become a case study, this paper will take on elements from the publisher’s life story to reflect on how his individual profile developed under the convergence of various effects, socializations, and chance events. His profile is indeed centrally filled with the activity of reading – this activity generated mental predispositions and challenges, and it determined the life course Vitor Silva Tavares intended to lead, notably dedicated to editorial prescription and the mediation of reading, as he passed on to others impressions (about many worlds) which were primarily his own.