Eugénio Lisboa, 1930-

Dossier MZ-0469

 

Eugénio Lisboa was born in Lourenço Marques in 1930, and is a notable figure in both Mozambican and Portuguese literary circles as an essayist and literary critic. His best known work from a Mozambican point of view is probably the two-volume collection Crónica dos Anos da Peste (1973-1975; reprinted in Lisbon as a single volume in 1996).

Lisboa left Mozambique at the age of 17 for Portugal, where he obtained a licenciatura in electrical engineering in 1953. He subsequently worked for many years in France in the petroleum industry, before turning to an academic career in the 1970s as a teacher of literature at the universities of Lourenço Marques, Pretoria and finally Stockholm.

Caricature of Eugenio Lisboa

Above: a cartoon likeness of Eugénio Lisboa by Sérgio Tique, from Tempo (13 August 1989), p.47. Left: the cover of volume one of Crónica dos Anos da Peste (Lourenço Marques: Académica, 1973); and a current picture of Lisboa. Below: Eugénio Lisboa in 1989 in conversation in Maputo.

 

During the years that he spent in Mozambique he worked with Rui Knopfli as co-editor of several oppositionist literary journals, as well as producing a series of radio dramas for what was then Rádio Clube de Moçambique. He has published widely in Mozambican and Portuguese newspapers, magazines and journals, both under his own name and using pseudonyms.

During visits to Mozambique in the 1980s, Lisboa granted occasional interviews to local journals such as Tempo and Domingo, some of which are posted here. Of particular interest is the four-part interview with Nelson Saúte, of which three parts are listed below.

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MHN Resources

◊ 25 May 1986
Calane da Silva; Nuno Cláudio dos Santos. Entre a criação e o que se escreve sobre ela há hoje um desequilíbrio perturbante: Eugénio Lisboa em entrevista exclusiva à «Gazeta de Artes e Letras» da «Tempo». Tempo [Maputo], no.815 (25 May 1986), p.43-47. This interview was conducted in Lisbon. Click here to download a PDF file, size 1.0 Mb.

◊ 27 May-2 June 1988
Eugénio Lisboa. O Jornal [Lisboa], 27 May-2 June 1988. A short notice of the collection As vinte e cinco notas do texto. Click here to download a PDF file, size 62 kb.

◊ 23 July 1989
Nelson Saúte. Eugénio Lisboa: a jornada do engenheiro no território da escrita. Tempo [Maputo] (23 July 1989), pág. 46-50. Click here to download a PDF file, size 911 kb.

◊ 23 July 1989
Apesar de treze anos de ausência, nunca saí de Moçambique: Eugénio Lisboa, escritor português, quando recentemente visitou Moçambique. Domingo [Maputo], 23 July 1989, pág. 5. Click here to download a PDF file, size 672 kb.

◊ 13 August 1989
Nelson Saúte. Eugénio Lisboa: o exercício de autobiografia no rasto da memória criativa. Tempo [Maputo] (13 August 1989), pág. 46-50. Click here to download a PDF file, size 484 kb.

◊ 20 August 1989
Nelson Saúte. Eugénio Lisboa: o reencontro [im]possível na capital da memória. Tempo [Maputo] (20 August 1989), pág. 42-46. Click here to download a PDF file, size 826 kb.

Eugenio Lisboa in the late 1980s

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