Walfrido Antão was an Indian prolific cronista and short story writer in the Portuguese-language Goan press, becoming particularly active as this tradition breathed its last.
Born in Arossim, Antão contributed several hundred such articles to O Heraldo and Diário da Noite from the late 1950s until the demise or Anglicisation of these papers.
Antão's crónicas reflect his preoccupations with environmental concerns, Goan culture, the future of the Portuguese language in the territory, and issues related to Alcoholics Anonymous, of which he was one of the first promoters in Goa[1] Antão's stories, like the rest of his journalistic output, seem influenced by what we could loosely term existentialist concerns, such as alienation, freedom, absurdity, authenticity and self-determination.
[3] Earlier, before the environment became an issue, he allowed his brother-in-law to extract sand from the dunes on his ancestral property - that was later sold to Park Hyatt Resort, Arossim.
The extent to which the author himself was touched by existential despair, which here could be conceptualized as a loss of hope concerning the signification and transformation of life, is open to debate.