"It’s often said that a writer has a voice—a narrative voice—and that some never find it. A poet, on the other hand, has diction and becomes a poet precisely because they’ve found or invented it, even though readers may not always hear it. Of course, the narrative or poetic voice isn’t the same as the writer’s personal voice, and that’s where the danger lies. Some write but never become true writers because they confuse these two registers: they prioritize psychology over aesthetics, expressive confession over linguistic construction, narrative over testimony, and textuality over witness.

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What’s extraordinary is mixing all of this together and producing literature without erasing the uniqueness of the writing subject, without omitting the experience—always singular—while remaining faithful to the architecture, without whose rigor all effort sinks into a sea of subjectivism, sentimental melancholy, emptiness, redundancy, and predictability, trading tears and smiles at the cost of renouncing the boldness to create and think in the same act. When this synthetic fusion is achieved, we hear the voice clearly, the whisper of the text, and we dive into an engaging and hypnotic intimacy that enchants, persuades, but also disturbs and changes us, pulling the rug from under our feet and opening up a space for another voice—a space that will be filled by each and every one of us as readers.

Marco’s chronicles, the brief texts of Marco da Costa, are of this rare type. The gift may have fallen from the sky, or from his multilingual competence, or from genetic inheritance, but I assure you that wouldn’t be enough if not for the work, the effort put into the craftsmanship of words and silences, the courage to look around without prejudice and fully feel the presence of the Other, the desire to share, and that magnificent vocation for intimacy."