Maria de Lourdes Levy
Hearing a member of a panel of examiners say that she would do better as a housewife didn’t stop Maria de Lourdes Levy (1921-2015) from being the second woman to earn a doctorate in medicine in Portugal, in 1958. Regarded as the matriarch of paediatrics in the country, she was a pioneer in adolescent medicine. She advocated for the humanisation of hospital care, through the improvement of visiting conditions and parents being allowed to accompany their children. A professor at the University of Lisbon, she also co-founded the Instituto de Apoio à Criança (Institute for Child Support).
Nuno Teotónio Pereira
Before he graduated in 1949, Nuno Teotónio Pereira (1922-2016) participated in the first National Congress of Architecture, which took place a year earlier, at which he lectured on affordable housing, an area that would become his focus. He became well-known in 1955 for the Bloco das Águas Livres housing block, in Lisbon, in collaboration with Bartolomeu Costa Cabral. Further partnerships with colleagues resulted in three Valmor prizes, including one for the office building on Rua Braamcamp (1971), popularly known as “Franjinhas” (little fringes), designed in collaboration with João Braula Reis.
Salette Tavares
Born in Mozambique, Salette Tavares (1922-1994) came to Portugal at the age of eleven. In 1948, she graduated in historical and philosophical sciences, later translating Pascal. Nine years later, she published Espelho Cego (Blind Mirror), her first book of poetry, in which she explored the relationship between the text and its layout on the page. It was at this time that she established her experimental, graphic and spatial style of poetic composition, incorporating it in various formats. In 1965, with Concerto e Audição Pictórica (Concert and pictorial listening), she is regarded as having led the first artistic happening in Portugal.
Gonçalo Ribeiro Telles
An agricultural engineer, Gonçalo Ribeiro Telles (1922-2020) began working in Lisbon City Council’s “green spaces” department. Also trained in landscape architecture, he became notable for his project for the gardens of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, in partnership with António Viana Barreto and which won the Valmor Prize in 1975. Minister for Quality of Life between 1981 and 1983, he created the protected zones in the country’s ecological and agricultural reserves. The “Father of Ecology in Portugal”, he devised the framework for municipal master plans.
Laura Ayres
Laura Ayres (1922-1992) had a great interest in studying and fighting viruses, sparked during the general residency on her medicine course, which she completed with distinction, in 1946. During a work placement at what would become the Instituto Nacional de Saúde (National Institute of Health), she researched influenza and other respiratory illnesses. At the Centro Nacional da Gripe (National Influenza Centre), she set up a virology laboratory that would become a benchmark in the field. In 1979, she undertook the first national serological survey, tracing the profile of 19 infections. During the 1980s, she led the fight against AIDS in Portugal.
Agustina Bessa-Luís
From a middle-class background in rural Amarante, Agustina Bessa- -Luís (1922-2019) showed an interest in books from an early age. After graduating in Coimbra, she settled in Porto. In 1948, she published Mundo Fechado (Closed World), her first work as a novelist, a genre in which she would make her name with A Sibila (The Sibyl, 1954), her masterpiece. Regarded as a neo-romantic, she was influenced by Camilo Castelo Branco. She won the Camões Prize in 2004, and forged a strong creative relationship with the director Manoel de Oliveira, with whom she shared a passion for the Douro River region.
José Saramago
The son of farmers from the Ribatejo region, José Saramago (1922- -2010) moved with his parents to Lisbon and, at the age of 12, trained as a lathe operator. He became absorbed in writing and published his first novel, Terra do Pecado (Land of Sin), in 1947. The editor’s rejection of a second book led to an interval of 30 years in his novels. He wrote poetry and articles, but it was works such as Memorial do Convento(Baltasar and Blimunda, 1982), O Evangelho segundo Jesus Cristo (The Gospel According to Jesus Christ, 1991) and Ensaio sobre a Cegueira (Blindness, 1995) that won him the first Nobel Prize in Literature in thePortuguese language, in 1998.
Mariana Rey Monteiro
Daughter of the actress Amélia Rey Colaço (1898-1990) and the actor and director Robles Monteiro (1888-1958), Mariana Rey Monteiro (1922-2010) dreamt of working in the theatre from an early age. She made her début at the Dona Maria II National Theatre, in 1946, in Sophocles’ Antigone, joining the company directed by her parents. This was followed by plays written by Shakespeare, Moliére, Ibsen, Tennessee Williams and Ionesco. She also worked in film, but was best known for her work on soap operas. She was among the cast of Vila Faia (1982), the first Portuguese production in the genre.
