The same source added that on Monday the funeral will begin at 2 p.m. with Mass, and the body of the 81-year-old writer will later be placed in the artists’ grave at Cemitério dos Prazeres, Lisbon.
Portuguese writer Antonio Torrado, author of over a hundred literary works, especially for children, died on Friday at home as a result of a prolonged illness, writer José Jorge Letria told Lusa.
An award-winning poet and playwright, former high school teacher, Antonio Torrado has been involved from an early age with pedagogy, literary creation for the little ones, rebuilding and reinterpreting traditional stories, and encouraging reading.
António Torrado was born in Lisbon in 1939, graduated from the Faculty of Philosophy in Coimbra and devoted himself to teaching in the 1960s until he was removed from office for political reasons.
On Friday, Culture Minister Graça Fonseca mourned the death of a writer she remembered as a “big name” and “inevitable exile” in Portuguese literature.
“The Minister of Culture Graça Fonseca deeply regrets the death of the writer Antonio Torrado (1939–2021), a poet, fictional writer and playwright famous in Portuguese children’s literature,” reads a note published in Strategy, Planning and Cultural Assessment.
The government official also called the author a “master of the Portuguese language”, highlighting his “unique” sense of humor and empathy.
For Graça Fonseca, Antonio Torrado “is an inevitable reference in Portuguese literature of recent decades,” with a “remarkable work” that testifies to the “transformative value of imagination and fantasy” and memory, and is also a repository of Portuguese literary traditions. …
“Through his texts, the past, present and future of Portuguese literature is constantly communicated in a work that has taught many to read and, moreover, to dream and believe in the magical reality of worlds created from pages and ink,” he added, expressing condolences to the author’s family and friends.
