Teresa Rita Lopes, born in Faro on September 12, 1937, was a prolific researcher of Pessoa’s works and also made her mark as a poet, short story writer, and playwright, receiving several accolades throughout her career, according to biographical data from Presença’s website.
From 1963 to 1982, she resided in Paris, France, where she served as a professor at the University of Sorbonne Nouvelle and defended her doctoral thesis titled “Fernando Pessoa and the Symbolist Drama — Inheritance and Creation.”
The Algarve native left Portugal in 1963, fleeing the persecution of the PIDE, the dictatorship’s political police, and exiled herself in France. She later returned to focus on studying thousands of documents from Fernando Pessoa’s estate at a time when the poet was still relatively unknown internationally.
Teresa Rita Lopes took on the task of producing new editions of Pessoa’s works, editing numerous pieces from the poet’s universe, who passed away in 1935.
During the Estado Novo period, she became known for preventing Pessoa’s estate from being sold in England, a fact she recounted in a 2020 interview with Postal do Algarve, emphasizing: “There is still much of Pessoa to reveal.”
Among her notable works are “Cicatriz” (1996, Eça de Queirós Award), “Os Dedos os Dias as Palavras” (1987), and “Estórias do Sul” (2005).
She was also a full professor of Comparative Literatures at the Faculty of Social and Human Sciences of the Universidade Nova de Lisboa and co-director of the Portuguese language poetry magazine Orion.
Her other accolades include the Lisbon City Award (1988 for poetry), the Pen Club Award (1990, essay), the Unicer/Letras e Letras Grand Essay Prize (1989, essay), and the Portuguese Writers Association Theatre Award 2001.
In the realm of theatre, she authored over 20 plays, some of which were awarded, though only four have been published so far, according to the Manuel Viegas Guerreiro Foundation, based in Querença, Loulé. The foundation highlighted a tribute made in 2017 during the Querença International Literary Festival, praising the “human and intellectual qualities” of Teresa Rita Lopes.
According to the foundation, her wake is scheduled for 3:30 PM today at the Church of Nossa Senhora Fátima in Feijó, with the funeral set for Tuesday at 1:00 PM, followed by cremation at the Vale Flores Cemetery in the same locality of Almada.
