SPA is going to launch the “Map of Portuguese Authors” initiative, making it possible to identify the birthplace of some of our most important, already dead writers, composers and visual artists on the map of Portugal. This will highlight the importance of cultural creation for our collective identity.
The initiative, which is born of an idea-concept of the cooperative’s president, will be presented to the National Association of Portuguese Municipalities, to the Ministry of Education and to the TV stations with which SPA has been collaborating on a regular basis so that this project can be dully expanded.
SPA will send each of the municipalities and civil parishes a certificate and a memorial plate of the connection between the place and the creator(s) who was/were born there.
In the meantime, a map of Portugal will be made that identifies the names of the celebrated authors and their birthplaces so that the general public, in particular students, become(s) aware that geography also has that strong cultural and emotional side.
SPA will be available to organize sessions all over the country that underline the importance of the celebrated authors and their works.
The cooperative is also considering the possibility of working with a publisher to turn this project into a book.
The “Map of Portuguese Authors”, which will be one of the highlights of SPA’s cultural activity in the next few months, will recall, for instance, that Florbela Espanca was born in Vila Viçosa, Herberto Helder in Funchal, António Ramos Rosa in Faro, Manuel da Fonseca in Santiago do Cacém, David Mourão-Ferreira in Lisbon, Sophia de Mello Breyner in Porto and Fernando Lopes-Graça in Tomar, among many other equally representative authors.
That will also be important for the new generations of students, who will be able to find new works and major authors in this way.
Lisbon, 28 August 2017
