Snu_Abecassis

Snu Abecassis

Snu Abecassis

Danish-Portuguese publisher (1940-1980)

Ebba Merete "Snu" Abecassis (born Ebba Merete Seidenfaden; 7 October 1940 – 4 December 1980) was a Danish-Portuguese publisher, who founded Publicações Dom Quixote [pt], a publishing house that became famous for publishing left-wing works, associated with ideas contrary to the dictatorship of the Estado Novo.

Quick Facts Born, Died ...

Biography

Daughter of the Danish journalists Erik Seidenfaden and Jytte Kaastrup-Olsen [sv], Ebbe Merete was born in Copenhagen on 7 October 1940. As a child she was given the nickname Snu, which means "smart" in the Danish language.[1]

In 1961, she married Alberto Vasco Abecassis.[1] She moved to Portugal after a year and the couple's three children were born there.[2] In 1965, under her direction, the publishing house Publicações Dom Quixote [pt] was founded in Lisbon.[3] The company published both left-wing literary works and non-fiction, with a focus on those that were challenging to Portuguese political authority, or were as yet unpublished in Portuguese.[4] It was the first to publish Pippi Longstocking and Alexander Solzhenitsyn in Portugal,[5] as well as the first to publish The Two Cultures by C P Snow.[6]

Francisco Sá Carneiro was a Portuguese politician with whom Abecassis had an affair. She divorced her husband, but Sá Carneiro was unable to obtain a divorce from his wife. Despite this, they began to live together and also died together on 4 December 1980, in the Camarate air crash, which, in addition to Snu and Sá Carneiro, killed Adelino Amaro da Costa. The three were heading to a rally for the end of António Soares Carneiro's presidential campaign.[7] It has been speculated that the crash was the result of an assassination attempt, but no group was prosecuted.[8]

Cultural legacy

The film SNU was released in 2019, directed by Patrícia Sequeira; it was the second most popular national release of the year.[9] Abecassis also featured in the series, 3 Mulheres [pt], first aired on 26 October 2018, which told the story of her life alongside that of Maria Armanda Falcão and Natália Correia.[10]

In 2011 Cândida Pinto [pt] published a biography titled Snu, which was translated into Danish in 2013.[11][1][12] In 2010, the final minute of Abecassis' life was the subject of a play, which premiered at the Casafez theatre in Lisbon.[5] Published in 2003, Abecassis' mother wrote a biography of her daughter six years after her death.[13]

Elizabeth Hera Garton hybridised an orchid and named it Snu after Abecassis.[14]

References

  1. [1]
    Reinholdt, Merete (18 January 2013). "Hvem var Snu?". Berlingske.dk (in Danish). Retrieved 23 September 2023.
  2. [2]
    The New Yorker. F-R Publishing Corporation. 1982. p. 79.
  3. [3]
    O'Neill, Lois Decker (1979). The Women's Book of World Records and Achievements. Anchor Press/Doubleday. p. 487. ISBN 978-0-385-12732-5.
  4. [4]
    Garcia, José Luís; Lopes, João Teixeira; Martinho, Teresa Duarte; Neves, José Soares; Gomes, Rui Telmo; Borges, Vera (21 May 2020), "Mapping cultural policy in Portugal: From incentives to crisis", Cultural Policy in Ibero-America, Routledge, pp. 13–29, doi:10.4324/9780429295539-2, hdl:10451/25038, ISBN 978-0-429-29553-9, retrieved 23 September 2023
  5. [5]
    Gliemann, Morten (9 December 2010). "Den danske førstedame i Portugal". Kristeligt Dagblad (in Danish). Retrieved 20 September 2023.
  6. [6]
    Fiolhais, Carlos (18 June 2016). ""Estranhas mas irmãs": revisitando a questão das duas culturas". Revista Lusófona de Estudos Culturais. 3 (2). doi:10.21814/rlec.119. hdl:10316/40629. ISSN 2183-0886. S2CID 164139937.
  7. [7]
    "A snumania contada por quem conheceu a paixão nórdica de Sá Carneiro". www.dn.pt (in European Portuguese). 29 December 2019. Retrieved 20 September 2023.
  8. [8]
    Todd, Cliff (26 May 2022). Explosive: Bringing the World's Deadliest Bombers to Justice. Headline. ISBN 978-1-4722-7897-5.
  9. [9]
    Liddy, Susan (8 August 2020). Women in the International Film Industry: Policy, Practice and Power. Springer Nature. p. 214. ISBN 978-3-030-39070-9.
  10. [10]
    s.r.o, RECO. "Snu Abecassis, Natália Correia e Maria Armanda Falcão, três mulheres no tempo dos homens". www.vogue.pt (in Portuguese). Retrieved 20 September 2023.
  11. [11]
    "Caras | Cândida Pinto escreve livro sobre Snu Abecassis e Sá Carneiro". Caras (in European Portuguese). 23 May 2011. Retrieved 23 September 2023.
  12. [12]
    Lusa (21 March 2013). "Camarate: PS diz que não há nexo de causalidade entre tráfico de armas e queda do avião". PÚBLICO (in Portuguese). Retrieved 23 September 2023.
  13. [13]
    Salema, Isabel (28 January 2003). "Biografia de Snu Abecassis editada pela primeira vez em Portugal". PÚBLICO (in Portuguese). Retrieved 20 September 2023.
  14. [14]
    "Morreu a mulher que deu o nome de uma orquídea a Snu Abecassis". Funchal Notícias (in Portuguese). 22 August 2019. Retrieved 20 September 2023.
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