Jorge de Sena

Jorge de Sena

Jorge (Cândido) de Sena (November 2, 1919 - June 4, 1978) was a Portuguese poet, critic, essayist, novelist, dramatist, translator and university professor.[1]

Life

Jorge Candido de Sena was the only child of Augusto Raposo de Sena, from Ponta Delgada in the Azores, a merchant marine captain, and Maria da Luz Tellez Grilo de Sena, from Covilhã. Both families belonged to the middle class, the mother's originally well-to-do but nothing much remained of it by time her child was born; the father's family hailed from military and political offices, the mother's from merchants. Jorge was born in Lisbon.

He received his degree in civil engineering, but published his first poems at age 18. His interests were wide-ranging, including literature, intellectual history, politics, and other areas of the cultural spectrum. His liberal yet strongly independent convictions regarding Portuguese politics during the Salazar dictatorship led eventually to his exile in Brazil in 1959, and subsequently, after the military coup in Brail in 1964, to the United States, in 1965. He became a professor of literature in Brazil, which also afforded him the opportunity to complete his doctorate, and that was his profession in the U.S. until he died.

He died in Santa Barbara, California in 1978. His remains were moved to the Cemitério dos Prazeres in Lisbon on September 11, 2009.

Jorge de Sena is undeniably one of the most relevant Portuguese intellectuals of the twentieth century. His output in fiction, drama, essays, and poetry is vast. He considered himself primarily a poet. The autobiographical novel Sinais de Fogo, which was adapted to film in 1995 by Luís Filipe Rocha, who is also the author of a documentary about Jorge de Sena.

Works

Poetry

Prose

Drama

Essays

Awards

References

  1. ↑ Jorge Fazenda Lourenço. "Jorge de Sena". Centro Virtual Camões (in Portuguese). Instituto Camões. Retrieved 2012-02-08.