An influent woman

Hello everybody, I'm Filipa from France, and today I'm going to present you some influent woman in my birth country, Portugal, as well as in all the world of poetry.

SOPHIA DE MELLO BREYNER ANDRESEN

Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen is born in Porto, in Portugal, in 1919 and died in 2004 in Lisbon, aged 84. She was one of the most important portuguese poets of the XXth century. She won the Camões Price in 1999, becoming the first woman to receive the highest portuguese price for poetry.

 She was born in Porto in a wealthy aristocratic family, but went to study in Lisbon university where she staid the rest of her life. She was politically engaged and played an important role in the instauration of democracy in Portugal, which is why she was influent for her country. A short documentary about her life was shot in 1969. She is the second woman the country honored much, after the faddist Amalia Rodrigues.

She received many awards, like the Camões price in 1999 or the Rainha Sofia price in 2003, prices of literature and poetry from Europe, making her a portuguese distinction in the world. She also translated Shakespeare in portuguese beside her writer work.  She was honored in 2014 by the Parliament, since when, her body is kept in the National Pantheon. A library was also called after her name in the town of Loulé.

Her poems and stories for children are very interesting and well-written, as much as her style is good, and she brings a different vision of the world in them. Because she is one of the rare portuguese women to have succeeded in her art and her career, she is pretty much admirable.