BIOGRAPHICAL DATA

Born in Coimbra. She studied Germanics, English and Romance Languages at the Universities of Coimbra, Tuebingen and Berlin. She was a lecturer in Portuguese at the Technical University of Berlin, a member of the teaching staff of the Lisbon Arts Faculty and later professor at the New University of Lisbon, where she taught German Literature and Comparative Literature until 1995.
Since then, she has devoted herself entirely to writing. Her work has received some of the most important awards for novels and short stories in Portugal and has been translated in several languages.
She visited Mozambique, the capital of which was then Lourenço Marques, the setting for her novel of 1997 A Árvore das Palavras [The Tree of Words].
Resident writer at Berkeley University in February and March 2004.

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A BRIEF COMMENTARY ON HER WORK

Teolinda Gersão´s novels deal with contemporary society,even when set in different periods.Some of the main themes in her novels include the complexities of human relationships,the difficulty of communication, love and death,oppression, freedom,identity,resistance,and the process of creation. Another central theme in her work is the concept of time : whether it is the treatment of time in the narrative structure, or the historical time in which her novels take place : the Salazar dictatorship (Paisagem com Mulher e Mar ao Fundo); the twenties ( O Cavalo de Sol), the 19th century ( A Casa da Cabeça de Cavalo), and the fifties and sixties in Portuguese colonial Mozambique ( A Árvore das Palavras). These periods of Portuguese History,while intrinsic to the action of each novel, are approached in a way that transcends time,rendering her work universal.

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PRIMARY WORKS (Dom Quixote Publications,Lisbon)


O SILÊNCIO (The Silence) (novel) 1981,4th edition 1995

PAISAGEM COM MULHER E MAR AO FUNDO (Seascape with Woman) (novel) 1982,4th edition 1996

HISTÓRIA DO HOMEM NA GAIOLA E DO PÁSSARO ENCARNADO (The Man in a Cage and the Red Bird) (children´s book) 1982; ( out of print)

OS GUARDA-CHUVAS CINTILANTES (Shimmering Umbrellas) (fictional journal) 1984; 2.nd edition 1997

O CAVALO DE SOL (The Sun Horse) (novel) 1989
Edition Dom Quixote-Planeta 2001

A CASA DA CABEÇA DE CAVALO (The House of the Horse´s Head) (novel) 1995, 2.nd edition 1996 ; Braille edition 1999

A ÁRVORE DAS PALAVRAS (The Tree of Words) (novel) 1997
Special edition with 50 illustrations by Maia ,November 2000 ; 2.nd edition March 2001
Edition Dom-Quixote-Círculo de Leitores 2001;
Edition Dom Quixote-Visão 2003

OS TECLADOS (The Keyboards) (novella) 1999 ;2.nd edition 2001.Braille edition 2003

OS ANJOS (The Angels) (novella), March 2000 ; 2.nd edition December 2000

HISTÓRIAS DE VER E ANDAR (short-stories) 1.st and 2.nd editions 2002

O MENSAGEIRO E OUTRAS HISTÓRIAS COM ANJOS (The Messenger and Other Stories With Angels (short-stories) 2003.

A theatrical version of OS TECLADOS was staged by Jorge Listopad in 2001 at the Centro Cultural de Belém in Lisbon.
A theatrical version of OS ANJOS was staged by O Bando in 2003
A theatrical version of A CASA DA CABEÇA DE CAVALO will be staged in Bucarest,Roumania,in April 2004.

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AWARDS AND PRIZES

O SILÊNCIO (The Silence)
PEN CLUB FICTION PRIZE -1981

O CAVALO DE SOL (The Sunhorse)
PEN CLUB FICTION PRIZE - 1989

A CASA DA CABEÇA DE CAVALO (The House of the Horse´s Head)
GRAND PRIX FOR NOVEL AND NOVELLA given by the ASSOCIATION OF PORTUGUESE WRITERS (“novel of the year”) - 1995
EUROPEAN PRIZE ”ARISTEION” – shortlisted- 1996

OS TECLADOS (The Keyboards)
CRITICS´ AWARD given by the ASSOCIATION INTERNATIONALE DES CRITIQUES LITTÉRAIRES- 1999
FERNANDO NAMORA FICTION PRIZE –1999

HISTÓRIAS DE VER E ANDAR – GRAND PRIX FOR SHORT-STORIES CAMILO CASTELO BRANCO,2002

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PARTICIPATION IN LITERARY EVENTS
Among other literary events she participated the following :

Europália-Brussels,1991
Book Fair- Leipzig,1997
Book Fair-Frankfurt,1997
Book Fair-Frankfurt, 1999
Salon du Livre-Paris,2000
Écrivains Présents – Poitiers, 2000
Porto 2001
Foire du Livre,Genève 2001
Bienal do Livro,Rio de Janeiro,2003-11-27
Carrefour des Littératures,Bordeaux 2003

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TRANSLATIONS

O SILÊNCIO –German translation

PAISAGEM COM MULHER E MAR AO FUNDO –German translation; Dutch translation

O CAVALO DE SOL –French translation (Flammarion)

OS ANJOS – French translation

A ARVORE DAS PALAVRAS – Spanish translation
Also published in São Paulo,Brasil,by Planeta (2004)

A CASA DA CABEÇA DE CAVALO – Roumanian translation

Short–stories in English translation published in the USA in The Threepenny Review,Beacons,A Journal of Literary Translation.

DICTIONARY ENTRIES

_Dicionário de Literatura Portuguesa.Organização e Direcção de Álvaro Manuel Machado.Lisbon,Presença,1996,p.220-222.

_BIBLOS,Enciclopédia Verbo de Literaturas de Língua Portuguesa,vol. II,Lisbon/São Paulo,Editorial Verbo,1997,p.819-822.

_Grande Enciclopédia Portuguesa e Brasileira , vol. III, Lisbon 1998,p.478.

_Claire Buck (Ed.)- Guide to Womens´s Literature Throughout the World,Columbia,1992.

_Kindlers Neues Literatur Lexikon

_Brockhaus Enzyklopaedie in 24 Baenden

_Dictionary of International Biography IBC, Cambridge.

_2000 Outstanding Writers of the 20th Century, IBC,Cambridge

_International Who´s Who of Professional and Business Women, (American Biographical Institute)

_ International Authors and Writers Who´s Who,IBC,Cambridge

_ Marquis Who´s Who in the World,2004

-Dictionary of Literary Biography- Portuguese Writers,vol.287.Edited by Monica Rector and Frank Clark.Farmington Hills,M.I.The Gaye Group Inc,2004.