Archival Overview
Heroic Angolan poet and independence activist who survived twelve years of imprisonment in the notorious Tarrafal concentration camp, author of iconic resistance poems Monangamba and Letter from a Contract Worker.
Biographical Record
António Jacinto was born on September 28, 1924, in Luanda. A founding leader of the Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), his militant poetry attacking Portuguese forced labor (indigenato) was translated across the globe.
Arrested by the PIDE secret police in 1961, Jacinto was sentenced to fourteen years in the Cape Verdean penal colony of Tarrafal (Campo da Morte Lenta). There he wrote poems of incandescent resilience, including 'Monangamba' and 'Carta dum contratado'. Released in 1972, he served as Angola's first Minister of Culture following independence in 1975 and was awarded the Afro-Asian Lotus Prize for Literature in 1979.
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Final Resting Place
Perpetual MemorialLuanda, Angola