In English, saudade is often explained as a word, impossible to translate, yet quantifiable as a state of being that encompasses a wholly relatable configuration of bittersweet emotions. These involve a distinct strain of profound melancholic yearnings that may be for a person, a place, an identity, or time that has gone, and that may never return.  Saudade is also a word for a deep-seated longing about an idealized experience that has not yet happened, and perhaps never will. 

Through poetry, photography, paintings, short stories, and song lyrics, the artists -- in this first book from the Untranslatable Words Series -- seek to mine and give new meaning to the dynamic and nuancical complexity of the word, saudade.