Manuel António de Sousa Lopes (December 23, 1907 – January 25, 2005) was a

Cape Verde Cape Verde or Cabo Verde, officially the Republic of Cabo Verde, is an island country and archipelagic state of West Africa in the central Atlantic Ocean, consisting of ten volcanic islands with a combined land area of about . These islands ...

an novelist, poet and essayist. With

Baltasar Lopes da Silva Baltasar Lopes da Silva (23 April 1907 – 8 May 1989) was a writer, poet and linguist from Cape Verde, who wrote in both Portuguese and Cape Verdean Creole. With Manuel Lopes and Jorge Barbosa, he was the founder of '' Claridade''. In 1947 ...

and Jorge Barbosa he was a founder of the journal '' Claridade'', which contributed to the rise of Cape Verdean literature.Encyclopædia Britannica
/ref> Manuel Lopes wrote in Portuguese, using expressions typical for Cape Verdean Portuguese and

Cape Verdean Creole Cape Verdean Creole is a Portuguese-based creole languages, Portuguese-based creole language spoken on the islands of Cape Verde. It is the native creole language of virtually all Cape Verdeans and is used as a second language by the Cape Verd ...

. He was one of those responsible for describing world calamities of the droughts that caused several deaths in São Vicente and Santo Antão.

Biography

Manuel Lopes was born on December 23, 1907, in

Mindelo Mindelo is a port cityCabo Verde, Statistical Yearbook 2 ...

on the island of São Vicente,

, which was then a territory of Portugal. He moved to

Coimbra Coimbra (, also , , or ), officially the City of Coimbra (), is a city and a concelho, municipality in Portugal. The population of the municipality at the 2021 census was 140,796, in an area of . The fourth-largest agglomerated urban area in Po ...

in mainland Portugal to attend secondary school. At the age of 16, he returned to São Vicente and started working at an English company that exploited a

transatlantic telegraph cable Transatlantic telegraph cables were undersea cables running under the Atlantic Ocean for telegraph communications. Telegraphy is a largely obsolete form of communication, and the cables have long since been decommissioned, but telephone and dat ...

. Aged 23, he started working for a similar Italian company, but he lost his job due to the Second World War and settled on his farm on the island of Santo Antão. In 1944, back in service at his first employer, he transferred to the island of Faial in the

Azores The Azores ( , , ; , ), officially the Autonomous Region of the Azores (), is one of the two autonomous regions of Portugal (along with Madeira). It is an archipelago composed of nine volcanic islands in the Macaronesia region of the North Atl ...

. After eleven years on Faial, he moved to mainland Portugal. He died in

Lisbon Lisbon ( ; ) is the capital and largest city of Portugal, with an estimated population of 567,131, as of 2023, within its administrative limits and 3,028,000 within the Lisbon Metropolitan Area, metropolis, as of 2025. Lisbon is mainlan ...

in 2005 at the age of 97. His first work was ''Monography of Regional Descriptions'', which was published in 1932. ''Paul'' was also published in the same year, and other works include ''Poems de Quem Ficou'' in 1949, ''Cape Verdean Themes'' in 1950, ''Creole and Other Poems'' in 1964, ''Personagens de Ficção e os seus Modelos'' in 1971 and an anthological poem ''Falucho Ancorado'' in 1997. His first novel was '' Chuva Braba'', published in 1956, which won the Fernão Mendes Pinto Award. Next was ''O galo que cantou da baía'', which won another Mendes Pinto Award, and the novel '' Os Flagelados do Vento Leste'', which was adapted into a film directed by António Faria in 1987, in the late 1990s, and was awarded the Prémio Meio Milénio do Achamento de Cabo Verde. His poem "Naufrágio" can be found on the CD '' Poesia de Cabo Verde e Sete Poemas de Sebastião da Gama'' by Afonso Dias.

Honors

A street is named for him in the city of

Praia Praia (, Portuguese for "beach") is the capital and largest city of Cape Verde.Santo Antão, Cape Verde Santo Antão (Portuguese language, Portuguese for "Anthony the Great, Saint Anthony") is the northwesternmost island of Cape Verde. At , it is the largest of the Barlavento Islands group, and the second largest island of Cape Verde.

named Ribeira Manuel Lopes is not the same etymology it is named after another Manuel Lopes.

Works

Here is a list of works by Manuel Lopes: *Fiction: **'' Chuva Braba'', 1956, Fernão Mendes Pinto Award **''O galo que cantou na Baía'', 1959 **'' Os Flagelados do Vento Leste'', 1960, Prémio Meio Milénio do Achamento das Ilhas de Cabo Verde *Poetry: **''Horas Vargas'', 1934 **''Poemas de quem ficou'', 1949 **''Folha Caída'', 1960 **''Crioulo e outros poemas'' (''Creole and Other Poems''), 1964 **''Falucho Ancorado'', 1997 *Prose: **''Monografia Descritiva Regional'' (''Monography of Regional Descriptions''), 1932 **''Paúl'', 1932 **''Temas Cabo-verdianos'' (''Cape Verdean Themes''), 1950 **''Os meios pequenos e a cultura'', 1951 - essay **''Reflexões sobre a literatura cabo-verdiana'' (''Reflections on Cape Verdean Literature''), 1959 - essay **''As personagens de ficção e seus modelos'', 1973

References

External links

"Manuel António dos Santos Lopes"
Caboindex

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lopes, Manuel Cape Verdean novelists People from Mindelo 1907 births 2005 deaths 20th-century Cape Verdean poets 20th-century novelists Cape Verdean emigrants to Portugal People from Portuguese Cape Verde

Biography

Honors

Works

References

Further reading

External links