Biography

Laura Cavalcante Padilha holds a PhD from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro and is Emeritus Professor at the Federal University Fluminense, in the fields of Portuguese-language literatures, with a special interest in African literatures. She was the president of the National Association for Research and Postgraduate Studies for Arts and Letters and Vice-President of the Brazilian Association for Comparative Literature. Within her work at the Federal University Fluminense, she was the director of the School of Arts and Literatures and of its Editions. Presently, she represents the field of literatures within the CNPq (National Council for Scientific and Technologic Development). She is the author of Entre Voz e Letra - A Ancestralidade na Literatura Angolana, 1995 (re-edited in 2005), which was awarded the Mário de Andrade Award from the National Library as the best essay of the year. She is the author of Novos pactos, outras ficções: Ensaios sobre literaturas afro-Iuso-brasileiras (2001), also published in Portugal by Imbondeiro. She co-organized A Mulher em África: Vozes de uma margem sempre presente (Colibri, 2007), and A Poesia e a Vida (sobre Alda do Espírito Santo) (2006), with Inocência Mata; and Lendo Angola (Afrontamento, 2008) with Margarida Calafate Ribeiro.