Fernando Venâncio, an author known for his essays, chronicles, and fiction, was actively involved in cultural, literary, and Portuguese language teaching projects. In 2020, he received the Jacinto do Prado Coelho Essay Prize for his work ‘Assim nasceu uma língua – Sobre as origens do português’.
Born in Mértola in 1944, Fernando Venâncio was educated in Linguistics in the Netherlands, where he lived and worked, focusing on historical studies of the Portuguese language.
In the Netherlands, he taught and held executive positions at universities in Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and The Hague, as noted in a biography by the Directorate-General for Books, Archives, and Libraries.
In addition to regularly publishing literary criticism in the Portuguese press, Fernando Venâncio translated works by several Dutch authors, such as Gerrit Komrij and René Huigen, and wrote textbooks for teaching Portuguese to foreigners.
‘Assim nasceu uma língua’, where Fernando Venâncio debunks myths and stories about the formation and evolution of the Portuguese language, relating it to Galician, was released in Portugal in 2019 and in Brazil in 2024.
On the occasion of this book’s publication in Brazil, Fernando Venâncio declared in an interview with Brazil’s Veja magazine that the Portuguese language easily adapts to changing times: “This allows us to foresee that Brazilians, Africans, and Portuguese will continue to have access to a rich and flexible language, without fear of variations and even differences.”
‘O português à descoberta do brasileiro’, ‘Os esquemas de Fradique’, ‘Beijo técnico e outras histórias’, ‘Último minuete em Lisboa’, ‘Quem inventou Marrocos – Diários de Viagem’ and ‘Objectos Achados’ are other titles published by Fernando Venâncio.
Publisher Manuel S. Fonseca, who released several of his works, including ‘Assim nasceu uma língua’, with Guerra & Paz, lamented Fernando Venâncio’s passing. In a statement, he recalled “the genuine friendship, the extreme trust, the open-circuit empathy”.
“I will not hear again his voice full of enthusiasm, his laughter, his such good humor, his taste for a more acidic joke about the minor absurdities of the world or the great circus of pretense, pomp, and circumstance,” stated the publisher.
[Updated at 16:33]
