Thanks Henrique Salles da Fonseca for your kind response. I agree with much of what you have said, including the need to educate oneself on a topic after an interest is raised by a novel. Thus we should not "run with the fiction" but go by some researched facts.
Unfortunately as you have written, most of the research is in Portugal far-far away from Goa. So it is for the Portuguese writers and historians to research and write the hard facts. This, rather than some fictional accounts which (novels) then serves as a basis for people far away - be in Goa or in Brazil to write further "PhD thesis" and more novels on the subject. Sometimes, the author presents the fiction totally contrary to the facts, further confounding their readers. I noticed you completely skirted my question about crypto-Jews IN Goa and their victimization IN Goa during the Inquisition. This would suggest you do not have much information on them. Perhaps because they were not a significant factor. So, some individuals tired of writing the "old" stuff are now emphasizing some obscure "fictional" accounts as "new" findings. So PLEASE, as far that you have some influence, impress on your Portuguese colleagues and friends to write the facts on Goa and avoid the docudrama in their writings. Yes, a little intrigue, romance, torture and violence can help sell the book and the inquisition.:=)) Kind Regards, GL ============= Henrique Salles da Fonseca: I'm not in a position to educate anyone; on the contrary, I would like to receive some education more. I agree with you that novels are not historical documents; however, writers like Richard Zimmler, awake common people for historical matters that perhaps would never arise if novels shouldn't exist. In my opinion, it is very important that novelists inform their readers that in his scripts there is a frontier between reality and fiction and it is the mission of readers to discover where that frontier stays..... it is much more easy to be a novelist. Gilbert Lawrence: > I would appreciate if Henrique Salles da Fonseca could educate us with hard > statistics (victims and offences) about THE INQUISITION IN GOA (not in > Portugal or Spain or Europe) against the crypto-Jews. I see this mentioned > on cyber-Goa. Yet no one has told us how many crypto-Jews were IN GOA and how > where they identified. Or is Crypto-Jews just a big word to confuse "supurlem > Goenkars" like me. :=)) Kind Regards, GL
