Maria Elsa da Rocha

• Name — Maria Elsa Gertrudes da Rocha • Born — 1924 • Birthplace — Aldoná • Died — 2007 • Occupation — Primary School Teacher • Genre — Short Story, Poetry

Maria Elsa da Rocha was a school teacher by profession, which took her all over Goa (and Damão). The experiences she accrued would feed into her stories, which were also often based on hearsay and anecdotes.

Throughout the 1960s, Rocha contributed short stories to the Margão-based Portuguese language newspaper A Vida, in which she co-edited a cultural page together, and the Portuguese-language programme 'Renascença' broadcast on All-India Radio. In 2005 a collection of her short stories appeared under the title Vivências Partilhadas [Shared Lives].

Vivências Partilhadas provides widest range of representations of the Goan subaltern in Portuguese-language Goan literature post-1961, with a particular focus on the experiences of women, though this deep-seated sympathy at times appears to be at cross-purposes with a certain social conservatism. Rocha's writing is notable for the use she makes of particularly Goan-inflected Portuguese and the considerable use of Konkani in her dialogues.