- Seu Jorge
Seu Jorge is a Brazilian musician, composer, and actor. Born Jorge Mário da Silva, he was raised in a favela in the city of Belford Roxo in the Baixada Fluminense region of Rio de Janeiro state. His fans consider him a renewer of Brazilian samba-style pop. He credits his influences as the samba school Estação Primeira de Mangueira, composers Nelson Cavaquinho and Zeca Pagodinho, along with footballer Romário and American soul singer Stevie Wonder.
- Pope John Paul II
Pope John Paul II born (May 18, 1920, Wadowice, Poland – April 2, 2005, Vatican City) reigned as the 264th Pope of the Catholic Church and Sovereign of the State of the Vatican City from October 16, 1978, until his death more than 26 years later, making his the second-longest pontificate in modern times after Pius IX's 31-year reign. He is the only Polish pope, and was the first non-Italian pope since the Dutch Adrian VI in the 1520s.
- Henry The Navigator
Infante Henrique, Duke of Viseu <small>KG</small> (Porto, March 4, 1394-Sagres, November 13, 1460); pron.), was an "infante" (prince) of the Portuguese House of Aviz and an important figure in the early days of the Portuguese Empire. He is known in English as Prince Henry the Navigator or the Seafarer (Portuguese: "o Navegador"). Prince Henry the Navigator was the third son of King John I of Portugal, …
- Gil Vicente
Gil Vicente <small></small> (born c. 1465; died c.1536 or 1537) was a Portuguese playwright and poet who acted in and directed his own plays. Considered the chief dramatist of Portugal he is sometimes called the "Portuguese Plautus"<sup>[3]</sup> and often referred to as the "Father of Portuguese drama."<sup>[1]</sup> Vicente was attached to the courts of the Portuguese kings Manuel I and John III.
- Olavo Bilac
Olavo Brás Martins dos Guimarães Bilac was a Brazilian poet of the Parnassian school. Considered one of the greatest poets ever to write in Portuguese, Bilac was a master at sculpting verses with carefully measured metre and rhythm while at the same time protecting them from appearing artificial. His poems seem natural and inspired even though they were carefully crafted for balanced shape and rhyme. He is widely regarded as a major poet in Brazilian literature.
- Ferdinand Magellan
Ferdinand Magellan ; Spring 1480-April 27, 1521, Mactan Island, Cebu, Philippines) was a Portuguese-born maritime explorer who, at the service of Spain, attempted to find a westward route to the Spice Islands of Indonesia. This voyage became known as the first successful attempt at world circumnavigation. He did not complete his final westward voyage; he was killed during the Battle of Mactan in the Philippines. As he died farther west than the Spice Islands, …
- Mia Couto
Mia Couto, pron. (b.5 July 1955 Beira, Mozambique), is considered this southeast African nation's foremost creative writer. His works in Portuguese, Mozambique's official language, have been published in more than 22 countries and have been widely translated. He was born António Emílio Leite Couto to white Portuguese settlers in 1955, during the colonial period. Aside from his native Portuguese, he also speaks Ndau and English as second languages.
- Pepetela
Artur Carlos Maurício Pestana dos Santos is a major Angolan writer of fiction. He writes under the name Pepetela. A white Angolan, Pepetela fought as a member of the MPLA in the long guerrilla war for Angola's independence. Much of his writing deals with Angola's political history in the twentieth century. "Mayombe" for example is a novel that portrays the lives of a group of MPLA guerrillas who are involved in the anti-colonial struggle, …
- John Of God
John of God (Spanish: Juan de Dios; Portuguese: João de Deus; 8 March 1495 - 8 March 1550) was a Portuguese-born friar and saint, who has become one of Spain's leading religious figures. John of God was born João Cidade in Montemor-o-Novo, Portugal, into a once prominent family that was impoverished but had great religious faith. His mother died when he was only a small child and his father joined a monastic order.
- Manu Chao
Manu Chao is a French, Spanish, Galician-Portuguese, English language singer of Galician origins. He is also occasionally credited as Oscar Tramor.
- Manuel Bandeira
Manuel Bandeira was a Brazilian poet. Bandeira wrote over 20 books of poetry and prose. In 1904, he learned that he had tuberculosis, which encouraged him to move from São Paulo to Rio de Janeiro, because of Rio's tropical beach weather. In 1922, after an extended stay in Europe where Bandeira met many prominent authors and painters, he contributed poems of political and social criticism to the Modernist Movement in São Paulo.
- Laura Pausini
Laura Pausini (born May 16, 1974) is a Grammy Award and Latin Grammy Award-winning Italian pop singer, popular in some European and Latin American countries, famed for her soulful voice, her romantic adult contemporary ballads and love songs. She has recorded songs in Italian, Spanish, English, French and Portuguese.
- João Cabral De Melo Neto
João Cabral de Melo Neto was born in the state of Pernambuco, Brazil, and is considered one of the greatest Brazilian poets of all time. He is often quoted saying "I try not to perfume the flower". His works are said to be dry, devoid of exaggerated emotions that is usually associated with poetry, sticking usually to images and actions and physical descriptions rather than feelings. The image of an engineer designing a building is often used to describe his poetry.
- Rubem Fonseca
Rubem Fonseca (born May 11, 1925) is an important Brazilian writer. He was born in Juiz de Fora, state of Minas Gerais, on May 11, 1925, but he lived for most of his life in Rio de Janeiro. In 1952, he started his career in the police and became a policy commissioner. Even though, he refuses to do interviews and is a very reclusive person, much like Thomas Pynchon, who is a personal friend of Fonseca.
- Antônio Houaiss
Antônio Houaiss was a Brazilian writer and translator, who served as the Minister of Culture. He was the son of Lebanese immigrants. He is best known for his translation of James Joyce's "Ulysses", and for supervising the composition of the Dicionário Houaiss da Língua Portuguesa, one of the major reference dictionaries for the Portuguese language. He was a member of the Brazilian Academy of Letters.
- Lygia Fagundes Telles
Lygia Fagundes Telles is a Brazilian novelist and short-story writer. She was born in São Paulo and is one of Brazil's most important living writers. Her first book of short stories, "Praia Viva" (Living Beach), was published in 1944. In 1949 got the Afonso Arinos award for her short stories book "O Cacto Vermelho" (Red Cactus). Among her most successful books are "Ciranda de Pedra" (The Marble Dance) (1954), "Verão no Aquário" (1963), …
- Cecília Meireles
Cecília Benevides de Carvalho Meireles was a Brazilian poet, journalist and teacher. She was one of the most famous female poets who ever wrote in the Portuguese language.
- Manuel Lopes
Manuel António do Sousa Lopes was a Cape Verdean fictionist, poet and an essayist and a founder of the modern Cape Verdean literature, with Baltasar Lopes da Silva, Jorge Barbosa was a creator of the paper named "Claridade".. Manuel Lopes written texts in Portuguese, and utilized several works expressed in Cape Verdean Creole. Manuel Lopes was born on December 23, 1907 in Mindelo on the island of São Vicente.
- Haroldo de Campos
Haroldo de Campos was a Brazilian poet and translator. He and his brother Augusto de Campos, together with Décio Pignatari, are the founders of Noigandres, a Brazilian literary movement similar to Concretism. He translated some of the most important literature of all times into Portuguese, such as Homer's Iliad, and some of James Joyce's and Mallarmé's works. When he died he left unfinished a translation of Dante's Comedia, …
- José Eduardo Agualusa
José Eduardo Agualusa (born 1960) is an Angolan journalist and writer born to white Portuguese settlers. A native of Huambo, Angola, he currently resides in both Lisbon and Luanda. He writes in Portuguese.
- Gregory Rabassa
Gregory Rabassa (born 9 March 1922) is a renowned literary translator from Spanish and Portuguese to English who currently teaches at Queens College.
- Viriathus
Viriathus (known as "Viriato" in Portuguese and Castilian) (180 BC - 139 BC) was the most important leader of the Lusitanian tribe that resisted Roman expansion into the regions of Western Iberia, where the Roman province of Lusitania would be established (in the areas comprising Portugal, south of the Douro river, and Extremadura in Spain).
- Alexandre Pires
Alexandre Pires do Nascimento is a Brazilian singer. Pires was previously the singer of group Só Pra Contrariar which he joined in the late 80s. After several albums in Portuguese, the band released a very successful album in 1999 titled "Juegos de Amor". The album included the hit song "Santo Santo" featuring Gloria Estefan. In 2001, Pires released his first solo album to much success.
- Henry Of Portugal
Henry, Cardinal-King of Portugal or Henrique "the Chaste" (Portuguese "o Casto") (Lisbon, January 31, 1512 - Almeirim, January 31, 1580) was the seventeenth King of Portugal and Algarves. He ruled between 1578 and 1580. Henry was the younger brother of King John III and, as a younger son, he was not expected to succeed to the Portuguese throne.
- Tania Maria
Tania Maria (born May 9, 1948) is a Brazilian artist, singer, composer and piano player, singing mostly in Portuguese or English. Her music is mostly vocal, sometimes pop, often jazzy, and unmistakably Brazilian. Whether playing fiery samba, tranquil bossa, funky NYC groove, or any other style, she maintains a style that is unique and instantly recognizable. Born in Sao Luis, northern Brazil, she has a degree in law, and married early and had children.
- José Maria Eça de Queiroz
José Maria de Eça de Queirós or de Queiroz (November 25, 1845 - August 16, 1900) is generally considered to be the greatest Portuguese writer in the realist style, and one of the great figures of European 19th century fiction. Zola considered him to be far greater than Flaubert. Others rank him with Dickens, Balzac and Tolstoy. Eça never officially rejected Catholicism, but was very critical of the Catholic Church of his time, …
- Dorothy Stang
Dorothy Mae Stang was an American-born, Brazilian sister of the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur order, who was murdered in Anapu, a city in the state of Pará, in the Amazon Basin of Brazil. Stang was outspoken in her efforts on behalf of the poor and the environment, and had previously received death threats from loggers and land owners.
- Aurélio Buarque De Holanda Ferreira
Aurélio Buarque de Holanda Ferreira was a Brazilian lexicographer, philologist, translator, and writer, best known for editing the Novo Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, a major dictionary of the Portuguese language. His family name was originally spelled Hollanda, but was changed to Holanda, presumably to follow the Portuguese spelling reform of 1943.
- Gustavo Kuerten
Gustavo Kuerten (born September 10, 1976 in Florianópolis, Santa Catarina) is a former World No. 1 tennis player from Brazil. He won the French Open three times between 1997 and 2001. Kuerten is also known as "Guga", an affectionate nickname which is a common abbreviation of the name "Gustavo" in Portuguese-speaking countries.
- Alemão
Ricardo Rogério de Brito, better known by his nickname Alemão (born on November 11, 1961 in Lavras, Minas Gerais is a former Brazilian football (soccer) player who played as a defensive midfielder. His nickname means "German" in Portuguese language.
- Sebastian Of Portugal
Sebastian I, King of Portugal "the Desired" was the sixteenth king of Portugal and the Algarves. He was the son of Prince John of Portugal and his wife, Joan of Spain. His paternal grandparents were John III of Portugal and Catherine of Habsburg; his maternal grandparents were the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V and Isabella of Portugal. He only had four great-grandparents (instead of the normal eight).
- Joaquim de Almeida
Joaquim de Almeida, <small>CavIH</small> is a Portuguese actor. He has worked in numerous films in Portuguese, English, Spanish and French, including the TV series "24". Among the popular American films he has appeared in are "Clear and Present Danger", "Desperado" and "Behind Enemy Lines". Joaquim has also played Father Sanchez role on the independent movie "The Celestine Prophecy". He became a naturalized American citizen in 2005.
- Jorge de Montemayor
Jorge de Montemayor (Portuguese: Jorge de Montemor) (1520? - February 26, 1561) was a Portuguese novelist and poet, who wrote almost exclusively in Spanish.
- Luís Romano De Madeira Melo
Luís Romano de Madeira Melo is a bilingual poet, novelist, and folklorist who writes in Portuguese and the Capeverdean Crioulo of Santo Antão. Born on the Capeverdean island of Santo Antão, he prefers to refer to the Capeverdean language as "língua cabo-verdiana". Romano has lived in Brazil since 1962.
- José Craveirinha
José Craveirinha, was born at Maputo in Mozambique and is today considered the greatest poet of that country. The child of a Portuguese father and a black mother of the Ronga ethnicity, Craveirinha was raised in the language and culture of Portugal. His poems, written in Portuguese, address such issues as racism and the Portuguese colonial domination of Mozambique. He was one of the African pioneers of the Négritude movement.
- Autran Dourado
Waldomiro Freitas Autran Dourado (born 1926) is a contemporary Brazilian novelist. He was born in the state of Minas Gerais. Going against current trends in Brazilian literature, Dourado's works display much concern with literary form, with many obscure words and expressions. Minas Gerais is the setting for most of Dourado's books, resembling the early to mid-20th century Regionalist trend in Brazilian literature.
- Lara Fabian
Lara Fabian (born Lara Crokaert January 9, 1970 in Etterbeek, Belgium) is an international Belgian-Canadian francophone singer, known for her vocal prowess and skilled technique. She often sings in Italian, Spanish, and English in addition to French. She has also sung once in Portuguese, though she is not fluent in the language, and also once in German back in 1988 for a german version of "Croire" ("Glaub"). She does not speak German either.
- Theodoric II
Theodoric II (in Spanish and Portuguese "Teodorico") murdered his older brother Thorismund to become king of the Visigoths in 453. Edward Gibbon writes that "he justified this atrocious deed by the design which his predecessor had formed of violating his alliance with the empire." During Theodoric's reign the Kingdom of the Visigoths, centered in what is now Aquitaine, continued to be a federate of the western Roman Empire.
- Giovanni Pontiero
Giovanni Pontiero was a translator of Portuguese fiction, most notably the works of José Saramago. His translation of the Saramago work The Gospel according to Jesus Christ was awarded the Teixiera-Gnomes Prize for Portuguese translation. During his life he held the title of Reader in Latin-American Literature in the University of Manchester, and was the principle translator into English of the works of Clarice Lispector, …
- João Rodrigues
João Rodrigues was a Portuguese member of the Society of Jesus (a Jesuit) who carried out missionary work in Japan. He wrote several books, including in 1603 a Japanese–Portuguese dictionary entitled "Vocabvlario da Lingoa de Iapam" (archaic Portuguese; in Japanese: 日葡辞書, "Nippo jisho", in) and in 1604 a Japanese grammar entitled "Arte da lingoa de Iapam" (archaic Portuguese; in Japanese: 日本大文典, …