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The 29-year-old, compared to fado's greatest voice, Amalia Rodrigues, is taking the music industry by storm. She has won a BBC award and is the darling of the music charts in Portugal.
With her talent and attention-getting appearance, she has managed to transform the dusty image of fado into one of youthful inventiveness. And part of what endears her to audiences is her devotion to the centuries-old fado tradition.
While there are as many theories of the origins of this haunting, melancholic style as there are practitioners, all that's universally acknowledged is that fado best exemplifies the Portuguese mindset of acceptance of forces beyond one's control, nostalgia and using the beauty of song to wrest the good from the misfortunes of life.
Mariza, as bright and charismatic as she is talented, believes fado is an indigenous song-form of the working Portuguese. To prove her point she has been writing a book for the past two years, due to be published in English and Portuguese when she gets enough time between tours to finish it. | 
