Artist-in-Residence

Helder Macedo

April 14 – 20, 2008

Helder Macedo, Emeritus Professor of Portuguese at King’s College, University of London, is an acclaimed poet, novelist, and essayist. Born in South Africa in 1935, he lived in Mozambique and in Lisbon before moving to London in 1960. Macedo’s books include Vesperal (poems) (1957), Poesia 1957-1977 (1979), and the novels Partes de África (1991) and Pedro e Paula (1998), among many other titles. He was the founding editor of Portuguese Studies and has published numerous works of literary criticism in his distinguished academic career. Macedo’s research focuses on the Renaissance and 19th century literature. His scholarly volume As Viagens do Olhar: Retrospecção, Visão e Profecia no Renascimento Português (with Fernando Gil, 1998; French edition, 2007) is forthcoming in English as The Traveling Eye: Retrospection, Vision, and Prophecy in the Portuguese Renaissance.

Macedo was the Camoens Professor of Portuguese at King's College, University of London, until 2004; visiting professor at Harvard and universities in France, Spain, and Brazil; and visiting scholar and writer-in-residence at the University of California at Berkeley. He is a fellow of the Academy of Sciences of Lisbon and of King’s College, University of London.

Honorary President of the International Association of Lusitanists since 2002, he served as the Association’s President from 1993 to 1999. In Portugal, he was Director-General for the Performing Arts in the Ministry of Social Communication (1975) and the Secretary of State for Culture (1979–1980). He was named Comendador of the Ordem de Santiago da Espada in 1993.

He has received many literary awards, including the Casimiro Dantas Prize of the Academy of Sciences of Lisbon (1977), the Best New Journal Prize of the Conference of Editors of Learned Journals (1987), the Jacinto Prado Coelho Prize of the International Association of Literary Critics (1999), and the Prize of the Portuguese PEN Club (1999).