The memorial service will commence at 11:00 AM the same day, at the Church of São João Baptista do Lumiar.
Born in Portalegre in 1938, Fernando J.B. Martinho earned his degree in Germanic Philology and completed his doctorate in Portuguese Literature at the Faculty of Letters, University of Lisbon. There, he taught several subjects in the Department of Romance Literatures, including Literary Theory and Pessoan Studies, the latter of which he established and directed.
Martinho had a distinguished academic career both nationally and internationally, alongside his own publications, including two books of poetry, “Resposta a Rorschach” (1970) and “Razão Sombria” (1980), and contributions to various anthologies.
He served as a Portuguese reader at the Universities of Bristol (England) and California, Santa Barbara (USA). As a critic and essayist, his focus was on contemporary Portuguese poetry and African literature in Portuguese.
His critical and essayistic contributions appeared in numerous publications, and he participated in several collective volumes of literature and poetry anthologies. He also provided prefaces for works by some of the leading figures in Portuguese literature, including Adolfo Casais Monteiro, António Ramos Rosa, Eugénio de Andrade, and Urbano Tavares Rodrigues.
In the 1990s, he was the president of the Portuguese Center for the International Association of Literary Critics and served as the international vice-president of the same Paris-based association.
In 2004, he coordinated “20th Century Portuguese Literature” for the Instituto Camões, handling the chapter on Poetry.
In 2015, he was honored with the Tributo de Consagração from the Fundação Inês de Castro.
