Corsino António Fortes (14 February 1933 – 24 July 2015) was a

Cape Verde , national_anthem = () , official_languages = Portuguese , national_languages = Cape Verdean Creole , capital = Praia , coordinates = , largest_city = capital , demonym ...

writer A writer is a person who uses written words in different writing styles and techniques to communicate ideas. Writers produce different forms of literary art and creative writing such as novels, short stories, books, poetry, travelogues, pla ...

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems ( oral or wr ...

and

diplomat A diplomat (from grc, δίπλωμα; romanized ''diploma'') is a person appointed by a state or an intergovernmental institution such as the United Nations or the European Union to conduct diplomacy with one or more other states or internati ...

. He served as the first

Ambassador An ambassador is an official envoy, especially a high-ranking diplomat who represents a state and is usually accredited to another sovereign state or to an international organization as the resident representative of their own government or sov ...

of Cape Verde to

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic, In recognized minority languages of Portugal: :* mwl, República Pertuesa is a country located on the Iberian Peninsula, in Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Macaronesian ...

from 1975 until 1981 following his country's independence.

Biography

Fortes was born in

Mindelo Mindelo is a port cityCabo Verde, Statistical Yearbook ...

on Cape Verde's São Vicente island in 1933. He is a graduate in law of the

University of Lisbon The University of Lisbon (ULisboa; pt, Universidade de Lisboa, ) is a public research university in Lisbon, and the largest university in Portugal. It was founded in 2013, from the merger of two previous public universities located in Lisbon, t ...

(1966), chaired the ''Association of Cape Verde Writers'' (2003-2006) and is the author of some of the most significant works of Cape Verdean

literature Literature is any collection of written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially prose fiction, drama, and poetry. In recent centuries, the definition has expanded to inclu ...

. He has worked as a teacher and a lawyer and he served as Cape Verde's

ambassador An ambassador is an official envoy, especially a high-ranking diplomat who represents a state and is usually accredited to another sovereign state or to an international organization as the resident representative of their own government or sov ...

. He was a judge in

Angola , national_anthem = "Angola Avante"() , image_map = , map_caption = , capital = Luanda , religion = , religion_year = 2020 , religion_ref = , coordina ...

in the capital Luanda and Benguela and joined several governments in the Cape Verde Republic. He represented the PAICV. Corsino Fortes's first book ''Pão & Fonema'' (Bread & Phoneme), which appeared in 1974, made an immediate impact. 1974 was a momentous year for

and its

African colonies The history of external colonisation of Africa can be dated back from ancient, medieval, or modern history, depending on how the term colonisation is defined. Ancient Greeks, Romans, Arabs and Malays all established colonies on the African c ...

as it was the year in which the authoritarian Estado Novo regime was overthrown, an act which began the process that led to the decolonisation of the Cape Verde Islands in 1975. Not long after he was the first Cape Verdean ambassador to Portugal for a year. He became the first ever Cape Verdean ambassador to France on August 25, 1976 and served until December 2, 1981 which was succeeded by André Corsino Tolentino. When Corsino Fortes was deputy secretary to the Prime Minister and Minister of Social Communications, he inspired a television model of Iceland in which television stations existed and operated in small cities and proved the experimental mode for the country's model, a few years before RTC started television broadcasting in 1997. After ''Pão & Fonema'' he published ''Arvore e Tambor'' (Tree and Drum) in 1986. Both ''Pão e Fonema'' and ''Árvore e Tambor'' expressed a new conscience of reality in Cape Verde and a new traditional and cultural works on the archipelago. He finished what he had long seen as a trilogy in 2001 with ''Pedras de Sol & Substância'' which was collected with the previous two books under the title ''A Cabeça Calva de Deus'' (The bald head of God), they were sagas on the freedom to the people. ''Sinos de Silencio'' was his very last book published in 2015. In the final years of his life, he was interviewed along with

Tomé Varela da Silva Tomé Varela da Silva (born 1948 in São Jorge dos Órgãos, Santiago, Cape Verde) is a Cape Verdean writer, poet, philosopher and anthropologist which he studies in an orally tradition and the musical heritage of Cape Verde in which he favored fo ...

on December 3, 2008 in Nós Fora dos Eixos, later by RTC, the national television network in February 2010, later at a Brazilian university with Christina Ramalho on September 26, 2010 and by the country's major weekly newspaper ''

A Semana ''A Semana'' ( Portuguese meaning "The Week") is a Cape Verdean daily that covers its top stories in the archipelago and local stories ranging from each island. ''A Semana'' is located in the Cape Verdean capital city of Praia and is one of the mos ...

'' in October 2013. Cosino Fortes died in

Mindelo Mindelo is a port cityCabo Verde, Statistical Yearbook ...

, Cape Verde, on July 24, 2015, at the age of 82. He was survived by three children.

Works

*''Pão & Fonema'' (1974) *''Árvore & Tombor'' (1986) *''Pedras de Sol & Substância'' (2001) *''A cabeça calva de Deus'' (2001) *''Sinos de Silencio'' (2015) Some of his poems are a part of the '' Tertúlia'' poem collection featuring poems made by other poets. Two of his poems ''De boca a barlavento'' (''The Barlavento Mouth'') and ''De boca concêntrica na roda do sol'' can be found on the CD '' Poesia de Cabo Verde e Sete Poemas de Sebastião da Gama'' (2007) by Afonso Dias

References

External links

Corsino Fortes, a brief biography at the Poetry Translation Centre site
(in English)
Texts by Corsino Fortes at escritas.org

''Corsino Fortes: Para uma celebração da poesia caboverdiana'' (''Corsino Fortes: On the celebration of the Cape Verdean poet'')
(article by Rosidelma Fraga at ''África e Africanidades'' (Brazil), year 2, vol. 6, August 2009
''A obra poética de Corsino Fortes: identidade e presença no panorama literário internacional'' (interview with the Brazilian university Christina Ramalho
Cape Verdean Embassy in Brasília, Brazil, September 26, 2010 {{DEFAULTSORT:Fortes, Corsino 1933 births 2015 deaths Ambassadors of Cape Verde to Portugal Ambassadors of Cape Verde to France Cape Verdean diplomats Cape Verdean male writers Cape Verdean poets People from Mindelo Writers from São Vicente, Cape Verde 20th-century poets 20th-century male writers Justice ministers of Cape Verde

Biography

Works

References

Further reading

External links