M J Mallon YA Author and Poet

I am delighted to welcome my guest Dan Costinas to my blog for an illuminating and interesting interview.

Interview with Dan Costinas
(aka Dan Quijote among social media users)

1. What matters to you other than the bard?
   Metaphorically speaking, William Shakespeare is everywhere, and his influence is felt far beyond the plays or the poems he wrote centuries ago; he is as immortal as his work. He is still able to transcend time and frontiers, and to speak to people of all cultures. Literary speaking, the entire Universal Literature matters, all Classics matter. Modern authors matter too. Both lists are too long, and I do not want to mention just a few, and unjustly let anyone out.
2. Why Shakespeare? Tell us about your books.
   I was barely a teenager when I got a hardback copy of Tales from Shakespeare, by Charles and Mary Lamb. It was back then when and how I started to read, understand, and love Shakespeare. After many decades now, I still have that Lambs’ Tales edition, and I carry it with me, like a precious token, everywhere I go to live.
   My admiration for everything the Bard-upon-Avon wrote has no limits today, but I have to admit that there is also something else that caught my attention during the years: the unlikely history of one certain book, sold with £1.00 four hundred years ago, and with $9.9 million in 2020, within an auction at Christie’s in New York: “Mr William Shakespeare’s Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies” – commonly referred to by modern scholars as the First Folio. Half of the well-known plays had never been published before, and masterpieces like Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra, Macbeth, The Tempest, Twelfth Night, The Taming of the Shrew, Measure for Measure, and others might not have survived, and would have been probably lost forever.
   Three years ago, around the month when we moved to Portugal, I decided that 2023 could be the right time to pay my own tribute to the Big Book. I strongly believe that Mr Shakespeare’s universal storylines are still relevant in the twenty-first century, and one of the reasons is the huge collection of adaptations and distinct rewrites of his plays. This idea was the foundation for my building, for what I tried to do in The Last Folio: a brief collection of so called pseudo-essays, focused on the universality of the plays. My book’s declared intention is to encourage reading at all ages, together with providing enjoyment and inspiration to the youngest of the readers around the world. Reading this book help us keeping the essential stories alive! The Last Folio is the eleventh book I published, but the very first one written entirely in English. The other ten are mainly translations, from/ and into more than one language, including Spanish, Portuguese, Romanian, and English.

3. What kind of books do you like reading?
   I know it sounds weird, but I own three thousand books, and I read everything and anything; I love reading. Of course, I have preferences, and right now I dig deep in historical fiction. Maybe also because my next literary project is to rewrite (or better say complete) the missing years of Don Quixote’s story. In my book, he is Don Miguel de Cervantes’ stepbrother, and I send him to follow the Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés traces, while the latter overthrew the Aztec empire in the first half of the 16 th century. It’s really amazing and intriguing to research that period of time, and all those heinous crimes committed in the name of Christianity .
4. Favourite quote and meaning to you.
   As Jerry Seinfeld says, “A book store is one of the only pieces of evidence we have that people are still thinking.” Both writing and reading require the brain to make connections, to visualize, to ask questions, to try finding answers, etc. – all of these are connected to active thinking. And to misquote Rene Descartes: we think, therefore we are; we are, therefore we live.
5. A bit of background if you don’t mind, where you live, or have moved to. Why Portugal?
   Why Portugal? Well, I shall try to cut the long story short, but I warn you that it will be a subjective answer: we like and enjoy warm/hot weather (even if the temperatures can get up to 70° in direct sunlight), then all those inviting 517 miles of Atlantic coast, the friendly locals, the quality of life, and the outstanding gastronomy. I’ve just told you that they were subjective; I am convinced that they do not resonate with all of you, the great variety of readers of this blog. After an early semi-retirement in 2020, we picked Algarve as the new adoptive place to live in. More or less 1,000 days later, we decided to move a bit north, and closer to the Spanish border. A wise move, since we wanted to experience a slower pace of life, in a completely different (and genuine) Portugal, somehow off the beaten path.
6. Tell us about your contributor role to Tomorrow Magazine.
   In the friendly jungle of Portuguese English speaking media, being impressed by the exquisite quality of the content and the very small team managing the monthly “Tomorrow Algarve” magazine, I decided to offer them a permanent column containing book reviews, and they said yes. Every now and then, I sent them one of my unorthodox interviews with authors or just interesting settling in the Algarve stories, and they said yes.
7. You are passionate about the community of writers and encouraging others to fulfil their potential. Who have you met along the way in this process? And in so doing, have you discovered more about yourself?
   Many decades ago, the books saved my life and sanity, (but this is another long story,) so I feel that I owe them a lot. That’s how I explain my commitment to discover and help the other writers to fulfil their dreams. I think it was in the early 2000s when I had the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to attend a conference on semiotics held by Professor Umberto Eco at the University of Bologna. I remember his words every now and then: “The good of books lies in them being read. Without an open mind to read them, the books contain only graphic signs that produce
   no concepts; therefore they are dumb and purposeless.” That was when I started doing my best to find potential hidden gems in each and every writer I met, and tirelessly promoting and encouraging reading.
   Speaking about the last three years, I had the honour and pleasure to meet a dozen of very talented foreign authors who decided to settle in the sunny (Portuguese) Algarve. Then I “crossed the border” and found another dozen of very talented foreign authors who decided to settle in Spain. So I made up my mind and quickly opened an online agora for all of them, where they can communicate and meet their readers. That was how and why the FB group “Authors for Hispania” was born. And yes, I discovered that I could help, and my contributions were many times worthwhile.
8. Would you rather attend a dramatic performance, and/or read the corresponding
   book?
   I am always doing my best –after or before attending a stage performance/ watching a movie dramatization– to find also the corresponding book. Just two examples: I have attended (at least) twenty different staged-Hamlets in my life, and I have read all the nine (so far) novels of Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander.
9. Do you prefer comedic, love, or tragedy stories?
   In the 17 th century France it was a yet famous saying: “Life seems a comedy if you think about it, but a tragedy if you feel it.” I like to believe that the meaning of any story stays mainly in the eye of the beholder. I read everything, but I very much prefer fiction, especially when it is spiced with good humour.
10. For fun… Perhaps you have been reincarnated come back to entertain us in present day. Or time travelled. Yes, or no, or maybe?
    A few years ago, maybe four or five, it was an online hearsay about Adam Shulman, the American actress’ Anne Hathaway’s husband, that he was a reincarnation of William Shakespeare. The gossip drew some physical similarities between Shulman and Shakespeare, including that the Bard wife’s name was Anne Hathaway as well. Funny, but completely nonsensical. Scientists say that travelling into the future is achievable, but travelling into the past is either wildly difficult or absolutely impossible. If you ask me, I have a dilemma with both: time travel and reincarnation. I only believe in what I can see with my own eyes, in what I can touch, or what I can experience myself. So, more likely is a no than a maybe or a yes.

My review of the Last Folio:

One gets a sense of Dan Costinas’s great love of Shakespeare’s dramas, comedies and tragedies in this 400th anniversary work of essays to commemorate the publication of Shakespeare’s first folio.

Costinas reminises about his first introduction to Shakespeare:

“I clearly remember, like it happened yesterday, my first contact with the Plays: I was ten years old and I was completely captivated almost three hours watching Ariel, Ceres, Iris, Juno, Caliban, and their magical story on the stage.”

Costinas writes with flair, knowledge, humour, and enthusiasm bringing Shakespeare’s undoubted dramatic skill to the modern reader. So many Shakespearean topics are still pertinent today: fortune hunters, love, hatred, jealousy, seduction, the war of the sexes, adultery, absurd foolishness, mankind’s flaws, power, the common man, battles, court life, etc.

Costinas also discusses (within the Shakespearean context,) topics such as racism, homophobia, misogyny, and antisemitism and his opinion on how Shakespeare viewed women. A debate I found particularly interesting.

This book is for those who enjoy Shakespeare, literature, philosophical discussion and history. And it is evident, his intention to encourage Shakespeare to be read and enjoyed by future generations, with this easily understood insight into the bard and his remarkable works.

Highly recommended. Well done, Mr. Costinas. 5 stars

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Last-Folio-p…

Read with kindle unlimited subscription.

@Marje, It has been an absolute pleasure to chat with you, and thank you very much for
giving me this opportunity to answer your questions. Also, please allow me to wish
you, your family, and all your readers the best Christmas ever, and a new year at
least 2024 times better than the previous ones!

@Dan thank you so much for being such a wonderful guest. I really enjoyed finding out more about you! Your extensive book collection comes as no surprise, I guessed that. And love that quote, “A book store is one of the only pieces of evidence we
have that people are still thinking.” Jerry Seinfeld.

All the best to you and your family, for a happy Christmas and a wonderful New Year, 2024.

Dan Costinas – prosaist, poet, aphorist, literary evaluator, and (Amazon Vine Voice) unbiased book reviewer

“I was born and raised in the last European country plagued by a nightmarish dictatorship; back then I escaped into reading, and the books managed to keep me sane. Today I am one of the richest persons in (the same) Europe, having everything I need and love: a bonnie lass as partner, a silly black poodle called Winston, a vast Western culture to immerse into, and definitely so many new
books to read and enjoy on each and every sunny day and every single starry night.
When I do not read, I write. Or translate. Or attempt to quit smoking. Or travel. Or I regret there are only twenty-four hours in a day.”

Main Links:

https://shorturl.at/chvF9 (Book)
https://shorturl.at/rHUZ5 (Mr Shakespeare’s Mates)
https://shorturl.at/bdyST (Authors for Hispania)