Fernando Correia da Silva

Fiction writer and poet. Influenced in his youth by the neo-realist current, with a period dabbling in surrealism. In 1952 he published, with Alexandre O'Neill, A Pomba, a clandestine militant poetry newspaper. An activist and militant for civic rights, having belonged to MUD Juvenil, after a spell in prison by the dictatorship's political police, he went into exile (1953), where he connected with figures such as Agostinho Neto, Aurélio Santos, Vasco Cabral, Marcelino dos Santos and others, declaring himself in favour of the independence of the then colonies under Portuguese administration in Africa. In 1954, pursued by PIDE, he abandoned his Economics degree and left for Brazil (São Paulo), where he worked as a professional journalist for the periodical Folha de S. Paulo and was an editorial coordinator for four years at a major publishing house. At that newspaper, he conceived and directed the children's supplement "Folhinha", which is still published today. Also in Brazil, he was one of the founders of the newspaper Portugal Democrático and launched a children's publishing house, Giroflé, in collaboration with Sidónio Muralha, Jorge de Sena, Casais Monteiro, Fernando Lemos and other Brazilian writers and artists. Following the 1964 military coup in Brazil, he took a job in an industry in Fortaleza do Ceará. In 1966 he returned to São Paulo. In 1974 he returned to Portugal, continuing his writing activity here and receiving a praiseworthy reference for one of his latest reference books from Prof. António José Saraiva. He coordinated 80 Vidas Que a Morte Não Apaga, a collectible published by the newspaper Público in 1996 for which he authored fifteen biographies. He currently coordinates the internet page Vidas Que a Morte Não Apaga, aimed at the Lusophone world. He has a novel and a novella at press.