João Aguiar (writer)

This article is about João Aguiar the writer. For the swimmer of the same name, see João Aguiar (swimmer).

João Casimiro Namorado de Aguiar (28 October 1943 – 3 June 2010) was a Portuguese writer and journalist. He spent his youth in Portuguese Mozambique.

Aguiar was born and died in Lisbon. After working for a time in the Portuguese tourist industry in Brussels and Amsterdam, he studied journalism at the Free University of Brussels and in 1976 returned to Portugal to work as a journalist.

He worked for RTP (where he began his career in 1963) and a variety of daily and weekly periodicals such as the Daily News, A Luta, Diário Popular, O País, and Sábado. In 1981 he was named press secretary of the Ministry of Quality of Life, a short-lived government department concerned with sports and the environment. He was a regular contributor to the monthly magazine Superinteressante and sat on its editorial board. He died of cancer on 3 June 2010 in Lisbon.

He dedicated himself to literature, being one of the most acclaimed Portuguese novelists in the genre of the historical novel.

Major works

• An Investigation of Portuguese Esotericism (Uma incursão no esoterismo português) (1983)
• The Voice of the Gods (A Voz dos Deuses) (1984)
• The Man With No Name (O homem sem nome) (1986)
• The Throne of the Most High (O trono do altíssimo) (1988)
• The Song of the Phantasms (O canto dos fantasmas) (1990)
• The Pearl-Eaters (Os comedores de pérolas) (1992)
• The Hour of Sertorius (A hora de Sertório) (1994)
• The Eulogy of the Spirits (A encomendação das almas) (1995)
• Solitary Navigator (Navegador solitário) (1996)
• Inês of Portugal (Inês de Portugal) (1997)
• The Dragon of Smoke (O dragão de fumo) (1998)
• The Green Cathedral (A catedral verde) (2000)
• A Goddess in the Fog (Uma Deusa na Bruma) (2003)
• The Seventh Hero (O sétimo herói) (2004)
• The Garden of Delights (O jardim das delícias) (2005)
• The Sitting Tiger (O tigre sentado) (2005, 2nd edition)
• Lapedo – A Child in the Valley (Lapedo – uma criança no vale) (2006)
• The Priory of the Cifrão (O priorado do cifrão) (2008)

Children's fiction

• The Group of Four (O Bando dos Quatro)
• Sebastian and the Secret Worlds (Sebastião e os Mundos Secretos)

Other works

• The White Orchid (A Orquídea Branca), libretto for an opera with music by Jorge Salgueiro (premiered 27 October 2008)
• I Saw the Third Reich Fall (Eu vi morrer o III Reich) by Manuel Homem de Mello (edited and with commentary by João Aguiar) (Ediciones Vega, Lisboa)

External links

• (in Portuguese) Website with biography and photos
• (in Portuguese) Information about the author