“Nos 30 anos da Morte de Luís Miguel Nava” is the title of a recital coordinated by Miguel Loureiro, assisted by Tiza Gonçalves, which pays tribute to “one of the most intense voices in contemporary Portuguese poetry,” as stated by São Luiz Teatro Municipal.
Reading the poems of Luis Miguel Nava delves into a “writing marked by strong and unexpected images,” where “the body becomes the center of poetic experience, a place of desire, pain, and metamorphosis.”
“Between childhood memory and existential reflection, his poems reveal a radical and deeply visual language, transforming the intimate into universal matter,” the organizers describe.
The recital features performances by Ana Videira, Artur Costa, Carolina Amarais, Joana Pialgata, Joana Resende, Pedro Moldão, Peter Michael, and Tiago da Câmara Pereira.
The sessions will take place in the Luís Miguel Cintra Room at 20:00 on Friday and Saturday, and at 17:30 on Sunday.
Admission is free, subject to room capacity, with tickets available one hour before the event at the theater box office.
Born in Viseu on September 29, 1957, Luis Miguel Nave studied Romance Philology at the Faculty of Letters of the University of Lisbon. After completing his degree, he pursued a master’s and worked as an assistant at the faculty from 1981 to 1983, the year he moved to Oxford, where he served as a lecturer in Portuguese.
During that decade, he was considered one of the most important revelations in Portuguese poetry, although his first book, ‘O Perdão da Puberdade,’ was published in 1974.
Four years later, he received the Revelation Award from the Portuguese Writers Association for the work ‘Películas,’ published in 1979.
After three years as a lecturer in Portuguese at Oxford, Luis Miguel Nava applied for a translator position at the then EEC (European Economic Community), won the position, and settled in Brussels in 1986.
Influenced by the imagery and biographical mythology of homosexual writers such as Arthur Rimbaud, André Gide, William Burroughs, Paul Bowles, Pier Paolo Pasolini, or the Portuguese Manuel Teixeira-Gomes, Luiz Miguel Nava, like many of them, chose Morocco and Mexico as places for inner exploration and erotic adventure.
In May 1995, he was found dead in his apartment, a victim of homicide. It was later discovered that he was murdered by a young Moroccan with whom he had a relationship, according to the victim’s diaries.
His works include the titles ‘Inércia da Deserção,’ ‘Como Alguém Disse,’ ‘Rebentação,’ ‘O Céu sob as Entranhas,’ and ‘Vulcão.’
In 2002, Dom Quixote published ‘Poesia Completa 1979-1994,’ organized and with a postscript by Gastão Cruz and a preface by Fernando Pinto do Amaral.
More recently, in 2020, Assírio & Alvim published his entire work, including the unpublished ‘O Livro de Samuel’ and ‘Romance,’ compiled in a single volume under the generic title ‘Poesia,’ with editing, preface, and notes by Ricardo Vasconcelos.
