Cesária Évora remains a star

The Cape Verdean singer Cesária Évora died on Saturday aged 70. She was 50 before she achieved international fame, never wanted to leave the stage and almost always performed barefoot. She was the Queen of the Morna, the Cape Verdean cousin of the Blues and the Portuguese Fado, as she liked to describe the genre. The columnist Ferreira Fernandes remembers her in the daily Diário de Notícias: "Cesária Évora is not dead. Our children leave us but they never die. A long time ago a Portuguese set off on a journey, filled with longing, and arrived in São Vicente [a Cap Verdean island]. Later he felt Sodade [the Creole word for longing] and part of that longing was Cesária, Miss perfumado [her world-famous album] and the Barefoot Diva. ... Many years later Cesária sang in Creole: It is not my native language and yet very much a part of me. ... One day the car radio suddenly spoke of my home, Cesária sang, and I cried. No, Cesária Évora is not dead. There will always be a gently splashing sea where the full moon lights up a path. There, up in in the heavens, you are a star."

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