Miguel Torga
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Miguel Torga, pseudonym of Adolfo Correia Rocha (São Martinho de Anta, Portugal, August 12, 1907- Coimbra, January 17, 1995) was one of the greatest Portuguese writers of the 20th century. He wrote poetry, short stories, theater and a 16 volume diary.
Born in a village of Trás-os-Montes, Portugal, to small-time farmer parents. In 1920 his father sent him to Brazil where he worked on the coffee plantation of an uncle who, finding him to be a clever student, paid his high school there and afterwards his Medicine graduation (1933) in Coimbra, Portugal (to where he returns in 1925). He established himself as an otolaryngologist physician in Coimbra and for years published his books from his own pocket.
He was a member of the literary movement Presença for a short period before founding two cultural magazines in the 1930´s.
After the publication of the book “O Quarto Dia da Criação do Mundo” he was arrested for two months, between December of 1939 and February of 1940.
After the value of his work was being recognized, he went on to receive several awards, as the Prémio Camões in 1989 and the Montaigne award in 1981. He was several times nominated for the Nobel Prize of Literature, being the last one in 1994, but he never won.
His agnostic beliefs seems to reflect in his work, that deals mainly with the nobility of the human condition in a beautiful but ruthless world where God is absent or is nothing but a passive and silent, indiferent creator.
