portuguese guests

Teolinda Gersão

Teolinda Gersão was born in Coimbra (Portugal). After a degree in English and German Studies at the University of Coimbra, she did post-graduate studies in Germany at the Universities of Tübingen and Berlin; during her last year in Berlin, she was a Lecturer of Portuguese at the Technical University. She returned to Portugal and taught at the University of Lisbon, and later at the New University of Lisbon, where she was full Professor of German Literature and Comparative Literature. She has been a full-time writer since 1995.
In addition to her three years in Germany, she lived for two years in São Paulo (Brazil) and for some time in Mozambique.

She is author of 12 books of novels and short-stories, translated into 11 languages. She was awarded the Pen Club Prize for the Novel twice, in 1981 and 1989, the Grand Prix for Novel of the Portuguese Writers´ Association in 1995, the  Fiction Prize of the ICLA (International Critics´ Literary Association) in 1999, and in 2001 received the Grand Prix of the Portuguese Writers´ Association for Short Story. Her book of short stories, A Mulher que Prendeu a Chuva (2007), won the Maxima Review Literary Prize and the Fiction Prize of the Inês de Castro Foundation in 2008.

Three of her books have been adapted to the theatre and staged in Portugal, Germany and Romania. The theatrical version of her novel The House of the Horse´s Head won the Grand Prix at the International Theatre Festival in Bucharest in 1995. She was writer-in-residence at Berkeley University in 2004.

Many of her short-stories have been published in literary reviews in the USA, including in the W. Norton Anthology New Sudden Fiction, and her novel The Word Tree was published in Great Britain by Dedalus.
Her English translator is Margaret Jull Costa.

Photo by Gonçalo Cunha de Sá

Lídia Jorge

The Portuguese writer Lídia Jorge is one of the most representative writers of the post-Revolution Generation, as a reference of a new writing style, in her country. Her books have been published in many foreign countries where her work has been widely recognized.

Lídia Jorge's roots are in Algarve, Boliqueime, where she was born in 1946. After finishing high school there, she took a degree in Romanic Philology at Lisbon University. Soon after her University studies, she began a life s a secondary High School teacher and in that role she spent some of the most crucial years of her life, working in both Angola and Mozambique during the last period of Colonial War in Africa.

Her first novel publication, O Dia dos Prodígios (The Day of Prodigies) (1980) represented the beginning of a new phase in modern Portuguese Literature. Other novels such as O Cais das Merendas (The Quay of the Parties Remains) (1982) and Notícia da Cidade Silvestre (The Wild Town Remembering) (1984) followed, both distinguished with the Literary Prize of Lisbon Municipality.

But it was with The Murmuring Coast (1988), a book which reflects her Colonial African experience, that the author confirmed her important role in the Portuguese Letters panorama. Among others we can cite O Vale da Paixão (The Painter of Birds, or The Migrant Painter of Birds) (1998) awarded the D.Dinis Prize of the Casa de Mateus Foundation, Bordalo Literature Prize by Casa da Imprensa, the Máxima Literature Prize, the Fiction Prize of P.E.N. Club, and in the year 2000, the Jean Monet Prize for European Literature and European writer of the year. Four years later, Lídia Jorge published O Vento Assobiando nas Gruas (The Wind Whistling in the Cranes) (2002), a novel which recieved the Grand Prize of the Portuguese Writers Association as well as with the Writing Currents Prize. A Noite das Mulheres Cantoras (The Singer Women’s Night) (2011) is her most recent novel published in Portugal.

The author has also published two novel anthologies, Marido e Outros Contos (Husband and Other Stories) (1997) and O Belo Adormecido (The Sleeping Beauty Boy) (2003), in addition to the independent publication of the novels The Instrumentalina (1992), and O Conto do Nadador (The story of the Swimmer) (1992). The theatre play A Maçon, (The Mason) was performed at National Theatre Dona Maria II in 1997. The novel The Murmuring Coast has also been recently adapted to the cinema by Margarida Cardoso under the same title. Lídia Jorge novels have been published in Brasil and translated into Spanish, French, English, German, Italian, Greek, Hebrew, Swedish and other languages. In 2006, the author was awarded Germany's first of International Albatroz Literature Prize by the Günter Grass Foundation, for her work to date. In Portugal all her books have the Dom Quixote publisher seal.

Photo by Alfredo Cunha

Pedro Mexia

Pedro Mexia is a writer and a literary critic who lives in Lisbon. He writes regularly for various newspapers and literary magazines and collaborates in radio and television programmes.

Poetry books since 2000: Em Memória (2000), Avalanche (2001), Eliot e Outras Observações (2003), Vida Oculta (2004), Senhor Fantasma (2007), Menos por Menos -Poemas Escolhidos (2011)

Rui Vieira Nery

Rui Vieira Nery was born in Lisbon in 1957. He studied music in Lisbon, first at the Academia de Música de Santa Cecília and later at the Lisbon Conservatory. He holds a Licenciateship in History from the Lisbon University (1980) and a Ph.D. in Musicology from the University of Texas at Austin (1990), which he attended as a Fulbright Scholar and a grantee of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. He teaches at the Universidade Nova de Lisboa and has supervised numerous masters and doctoral dissertations in Portuguese, French and Spanish universities. He is a senior researcher of the Ethnomusicology Institute – Centre for Music and Dance Studies and of the Centre for Theatre Studies. He is currently Director of the Gulbenkian Programme for Portuguese Language and Culture at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. As a musicologist and cultural historian he published numerous studies on Portuguese music history, two of which received the Musicology Award of the Portuguese Music Council (1984 and 1992), as well as many scholarly essays in Portuguese and international journals and collective works. He is also active as a lecturer in Portugal, various European countries, Brazil and the USA.

From 1995 to 1997 he served as Secretary of State for Culture in the Portuguese government and is now an individual member of the Portuguese National Cultural Council, the main advisory board to the Minister of Culture. He was chairman of the Scientific Committee of the nomination of Fado to the UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity and of the restoration of the six historical organs of the Convent of Mafra, as well as a National Commissioner for the Commemorations of the Centenary of the Portuguese Republic. He is a Corresponding Member of the Portuguese History Academy and was awarded in 2002 the grade of Commander of the Order of Henry the Navigator for services rendered to the study of Portuguese culture. He was made an Honorary Member of the Iberian and Latin-American Arts Forum and received the 2012 International Intangible Heritage Award of the Centro Internacional de Conservación del Patrimonio and the Gold Medal of the City of Lisbon.

Photo: Rodrigo Cezar

José Luís Peixoto

José Luís Peixoto is one of Portugal’s most acclaimed and bestselling young novelists. He was born in 1974 in Galveias, in the region of Alentejo (Portugal). Has studied Modern languages and literatures in Universidade Nova de Lisboa. Since 2000, Peixoto has published ten titles (4 novels, 3 fiction books and 3 poetry collections). He is three-times a winner of the Jovens Criadores Prize. His first novel “Nenhum Olhar” (published as “Blank Gaze” in the UK by Bloomsbury and as “The Implacable Order of Things” in the USA by Doubleday/Anchor/Random House) was shortlisted in all major literary awards in Portugal and won the Jose Saramago Literary Award, delivered every two years for the best novel written in all portuguese-speaking countries. ‘Nenhum Olhar’ (‘Blank Gaze’) was selected by Financial Times as one of their best books of 2007. In the USA, it was part of ‘Discover Great new writer’ selection by Barnes & Noble. In Portugal, it was selected by Expresso as one of their best books of the decade. Peixoto’s first fiction, ‘Morreste-me’ (published in the UK as ‘You died on me’, Warwick Review, 2010) was selected by Visão as one of their best books of the decade. In 2003, he wrote the short-story collection ‘Antidote’ in a joint project with the heavy metal band Moonspell, which brought in new readers all around the world. In 2007, his novel ‘Cemitério de Pianos’ (published as ‘The Piano Cemetery’ in the UK) won the Calamo Award for the best translated novel published in Spain. In 2008, he received the Daniel Faria Poetry Award. Peixoto’s poetry and short-stories have appeared in a great number of anthologies on dozens of languages. All his novels have been internationally acclaimed and so, far, have been translated in 20 languages.

Jacinto Lucas Pires

Jacinto Lucas Pires was born in Oporto in 1974 and now lives in Lisbon. He is the author of two novels, Do sol and Perfeitos milagres. He won the Prémio Europa–David Mourão-Ferreira (Bari University, Italy/Instituto Camões, Portugal) in 2008. His other works include Assobiar em público, a short-story collection; Azul-turquesa, a novella; and Livro usado, a travel book about Japan. He has also written theatre plays (Writing, speaking, Extras and Sagrada família, among others) and film scripts, and has directed two short films. Pires plays with the music band Os Quais, and has a column about soccer in Jornal de Notícias, a major Portuguese newspaper.

Patrícia Portela

Patrícia Portela studied set and costume design, sound design, scriptwriting and documentary in Lisbon, at the European Film College in Denmark, and elsewhere. She has written and coordinated several performances including Operação Cardume Rosa, T5, Lan Tao, and Wasteband. She has also published four books, including Odilia (2007) and Para Cima e Não Para Norte (2008). A September 2010 piece, The Private Collection of Acácio Nobre, is also forthcoming as a book. Portela’s work has won numerous awards, including the Prize Acarte/Madalena Azeredo Perdigão for Flatland I, a giant multimedia book. Her Flatland Trilogy won a special mention from the association of Portuguese critics for its dramaturgy, text, and use of space. In 2009 she received funding from the Ministry of Culture to develop her research on trans-disciplinary projects under the auspices of the Prado production house.

Patrícia Reis

Patrícia Reis (b 1970) began her journalistic career in 1988 working in different Portuguese and international media including O independente, Sábado, Marie Claire and Time Magazine. She produced a TV show entitled Sexulidades, and she has been affiliated with the newspapers Expresso and Público and the magazine Elle. She lives in Portugal where she is the publisher of her own magazine Egoísta and a partner of Design Atelier 004. She is the author of the photo-novel Beija -me (Kiss Me, 2006) and the novella Cruz das Almas (Cross of Souls, 2004) and of the novels Amor em Segunda Mão (Second Hand Love, 2006) and Morder-te o Coração (To Bite your Heart, 2007), all published by Dom Quixote. Her most recent novel No silencio de Deus (In God’s Silence) was published in Portugal in September 2008 and in March 2009 in Brazil.

Gonçalo M. Tavares

 

The Portuguese writer Gonçalo M. Tavares was born in Luanda in 1970 and grew up in Portugal. Beside his work as writer, he teaches Theory of Science at a university in Lisbon. Since 2001, Tavares has surprised his readers with the variety of his books and has been awarded an impressive number of literary prizes in a very short time. In 2005 he won the José Saramago Prize for young writers under 35. In his speech at the award ceremony, Saramago commented: "Jerusalém is a great book, and truly deserves a place among the great works of Western literature. Gonçalo M. Tavares has no right to be writing so well at the age of 35. One feels like punching him!" Jerusalém was also awarded the Prêmio Portugal Telecom de Literatura em Língua Portuguesa in 2007.

Tavares’ work has been published in the USA by Dalkey Archive and in France by Hamy, as well as in other countries including Brazil, Israel, Italy, Mexico, Poland and Spain. In Germany, Jerusalem will be launched by the publishing house DVA/Random House in 2011.

Recently, his novel Aprender a rezar na Era de Técnica has received the prestigious Prize for the Best Foreign Book 2010 in France. This award has previously been given to authors including Gabriel García Márquez, Elias Canetti, John Updike, Mario Vargas Llosa and António Lobo Antunes. This novel was also shortlisted for two renowned French literary awards, the Femina Étranger Prize and the Médicis Prize.

 

João Tordo

João Tordo was born in Lisbon in 1975. He read Philosophy and studied Journalism and Creative Writing in London and New
York.

In 2001 he was the recipient of the New Authors Prize. He has published six novels: O Livro dos Homens Sem Luz (2004); Hotel Memória (2007); As Três Vidas (2008), winner of the José Saramago Literary Prize and shortlisted for the Portugal Telecom Prize in Brazil; O Bom Inverno (2010), shortlisted for the best Fiction Novel of the Portuguese Author's Society and the Fernando Namora Literary Prize; the French translation, published by Actes Sud, was nominated for the European Literary Award; and Anatomia dos Mártires (2011), again shortlisted for the Fernando Namora Literary Prize. His novels are translated in seven countries, including France, Italy and Brasil. He also works as a columnist, translator, screenwriter and regularly teaches workshops in Fiction.

Photo: Miguel Manso