Luís de Sttau Monteiro

Luís Infante de Lacerda Sttau Monteiro (April 3, 1926 – July 23, 1993) was a Portuguese writer, novelist and playwright, a man to whom "the only sacred thing was to be free as the wind".

Biographical overview

Monteiro was born and died in Lisbon, Portugal. When he was ten years old he went to London, accompanying his father, who was, at the time, the Portuguese ambassador in England. Later, he returned to Portugal in 1943, after his father's removal from his position by Salazar.

He then graduates in Law from Lisbon University and works as a lawyer for a short period of time. Subsequently, he returns to London and becomes a Formula 2 driver.

After a while, and back in Portugal, he works in the magazine "Almanaque" and the "A Mosca" supplement of the Diário de Lisboa. In 1968, he was arrested by PIDE (Portuguese Politic Police) after publishing the plays "A Guerra Santa" and "A Estátua", satires that criticized the Portuguese dictatorship and the colonial war.

In the 1970s, he worked as a journalist with Portuguese newspapers such as Diário de Notícias and Expresso.

A day after his death, Mário Santos wrote in the newspaper Público: "Playwright, publicist, chronicler, fisherman, gourmet, sailor and frustrated race car driver, Luís de Sttau Monteiro was, above all, a bon vivant. He died yesterday (23.07.1993) in Lisbon, at 67, maintaining a very unflattering vision of Portugal."

Literary works

Despite being famous for his theater plays, Sttau Monteiro started his writing career in 1960 with the book "Um Homem não Chora", followed by the public and critic acclaimed "Angústia para o Jantar" (1961), book that showed a large influence of the "angry young men" generation of English writers.

In 1961 he published "Felizmente há Luar!", a play that won the Portuguese Writers’ Society Great Prize of Theater in 1962. The play, a severe portrait of the Portuguese social and political society of that time, was forbidden by censorship and would only come to stage in 1978, under the artistic direction of Sttau Monteiro himself.

Bibliography

Prose

• Um Homem não Chora (1960)
• Angústia para o Jantar (1961)
• E se for Rapariga Chama-se Custódia (1966)

Plays

• Felizmente há Luar! (1961)
• Todos os Anos, pela Primavera (1963)
• O Barão (1965, theatrical adaptation of the novel by Branquinho da Fonseca)
• Auto da Barca do Motor fora da Borda (1966)
• A Guerra Santa (1967)
• A Estátua (1967)
• As Mãos de Abraão Zacut (1968)
• Sua Excelência (1971)
• Crónica Aventurosa do Esperançoso Fagundes (1979)