Moraesu Street is a street in Tokushima where Portuguese writer Wenceslau de Moraes (1854-1929) spent his final sixteen years. For Moraes, Japan was both a fascination and a sanctuary—a place captivating in its culture, customs, and people, and a refuge from the highly industrialized, war-torn West he no longer recognized. Yet, unable to fully integrate into Japan’s insular society, Moraes lived in Tokushima as one who lives beyond the world. Widowed during his last decade, he devoted himself to memorializing his two deceased wives, immersing himself in nature’s contemplation and writing texts to be published back in Portugal. Today, his tomb and those of Ó-Yoné and Ko-Haru rest in a small local cemetery—a testament to a life lived between worlds. Moraes was haunted, and in turn, would haunt his readers. Decades later, diplomat Armando Martins Janeira and filmmaker Paulo Rocha journeyed to Japan in the 1950s and 1980s, retracing Moraes’ footsteps. Their pilgrimages bore fruit: Janeira’s book Peregrino and Rocha’s film A Ilha de Moraes (Moraes’ Island). MORAESU ST. emerges as photographer José Bértolo’s response to these spectral journeys. Born from a trip exploring Tokushima, Kobe, Osaka, Kyoto, and Nara, the book follows the paths of Moraes and his subsequent followers. It serves as a profound meditation on photography as the “language of the dead”—a phrase Moraes himself once wrote.

José Bértolo

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