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Manuel Alegre (b. 1936 in Coimbra, Portugal) became an opponent of the Salazar regime while he was a law student. He was arrested during his military service for taking part in a coup. After a ten-year exile in Algeria and Paris, he returned to Portugal in 1974 at the beginning of the Carnation Revolution. He has been a Member of Parliament for the Portuguese Socialist Party and is currently the Vice-President of the Parliament.
In his work, Alegre deals with the experience of loss of homeland and exile; the first-person narrator of his poems is concerned with seeking a home in language. "It is impossible to tell what is real and what is fiction. True poems in prose, they speak of a dream of freedom and returning home, lived and written in blood." (José Augusto Seabra)
Many of Alegre's poems have been set to music and translated into several languages. He has received many literary prizes, including the António Botto Prize for Children's Literature (1998) and the Pessoa Prize (1999). He was awarded the D. Dinis Prize in 2008.
Selected bibliography
Poetry
Praça da Canção (1965)
O Canto e as Armas (1967)
Um Barco para Ítaca (1971)
Coisa Amar, Coisas do Mar (1976)
Nova do Achamento (1979)
Atlântico (1981)
Babilónia (1983)
Chegar Aqui (1984)
Aicha Conticha (1984)
Rua de Baixo (1990)
A Rosa e o Compasso (1991)
Com que Pena (1992)
As Naus de Verde Pinho (1996)
Alentejo e Ninguém (1996)
Che (1997)
Diálogos = Cristina Valada + Manuel Alegre (2001)
Prose
Jornada de África (1989)
O Homem do País Azul (1989)
Alma (1995)
Contra a Corrente (1997)
A Terceira Rosa (1998)
Uma Carga de Cavalaria (1999)
Arte de Marear (2002)
Cão Como Nós (2002)
Um Velho em Arzila (2003)
Rafael (2004)
O Quadrado (2005)