Ana Luísa Amaral

ANA LUÍSA AMARAL was born in Lisbon, in 1956, and lives in Leça da Palmeira. She has written poetry, plays, children’s books, books of essays and a novel. She has translated poets such as Emily Dickinson, John Updike or William Shakespeare. Her books have been published in several countries, such as the United Kingdom, Sweden, Spain, Italy, France, The Netherlands, Brazil, Colombia, Venezuela, Mexico or the United States. Theatre plays have been based around her poetry and her books for children. She has received various prizes and awards, among them the Premio Correntes d’Escritas/Casino da Póvoa, the Grande Prémio de Poesia APE (Portuguese Association of Writers), the Giuseppe Acerbi Literary Award, the Premio Internazionale Fondazione Roma, or the PEN Prize for Fiction. Her name has twice been put forward for the Premio Reina Sofia. She taught for many years at the University of Porto, from which she received her Ph.D. on Emily Dickinson, and where her academic research centred around Comparative Poetics, Feminist Studies and Queer Theory. She has also coordinated several international projects. She is on the board of the Institute for Comparative Literature Margarida Losa, where she coordinates the research strand “Intersexualities”. She has edited several academic books, such as New Portuguese Letters to the World (Peter Lang, 2015). She currently co-hosts a weekly radio program on national radio on poetry, O som que os versos fazem ao abrir. In 2019, a book of essays on her work, entitled Beauty and Resistance in the Poetry of Ana Luísa Amaral, will be published in the UK (ed. Claire Williams).