António Ferra

António Loureiro Coutinho Ferra was born in Porto in 1947 and resides in Lisbon. With a degree in Germanic Philology, he is a teacher, cultural and socio-community animator as a technician for the Community Mental Health Association. He participated in «Cross-cultural Communication» encounters (at the Center for Studies of the Person – California), was a Drama Therapy and Dramatic Expression monitor and pedagogical advisor (at the Faculty of Arts and Humanities of Lisbon), as well as a Portuguese Language and Culture lector in Cardiff, and a teacher trainer in the Republic of Guinea-Bissau. His experiences are documented in his multifaceted work spanning animation, pedagogy, theater, poetry, painting (he has held several exhibitions), and even illustration. His theater features figures such as clowns, Corremundo, pirates, a harlequin, workers, a painter, as well as animals. Through this varied range of characters and the plot in which they find themselves involved, the intention is to highlight the importance of work, mutual aid, and a peaceful existence. Color, music, nursery rhymes, rhythmic tunes, word repetitions, references to children's games (such as «the 4 corners») and children's story imagery («the thread of the ball of yarn»), in a constant appeal to fantasy that entertains, are some of the traits that distinguish this writing. With the dramatic text Caleidoscópio, he won the 2nd Prize for Children's Theater in the Unpublished Theater Plays Contest promoted by the State Secretariat for Culture (1980). Selective bibliography: Zé Pimpão, João Mandão e os sapatos feitos à mão (1978), Lisbon: Ulmeiro (illustrations by the author); A canção de começar (1979), Lisbon: Ulmeiro (illustrations by the author); Caleidoscópio (1981), Lisbon: Moraes; Histórias e teatrada com alguma bicharada (1995), Odivelas: Europress (illustrations by the author).