Baltasar Lopes da Silva

On 28 May 1989, Cape Verdean writer, poet, linguist and lawyer Baltasar Lopes da Silva died in Lisbon at the age of 82. With Manuel Lopes and Jorge Barbosa, he was the founder of the literary journal Claridade. In 1947 he published Chiquinho, which is considered the first modern Cape Verdean novel. Lopes sometimes wrote under the pseudonym Osvaldo Alcântara.

Baltasar Lopes was born in the village of Calejão on the island of São Nicolau in Cape Verde on 23 April 1907. He attended the seminary in Ribeira Brava on his native island. He later moved to Portugal and studied at the University of Lisbon where he graduated in law and Romance philology. He then returned to Cape Verde and taught at Liceu Gil Eanes in Mindelo, São Vicente island; for a few years, he was also the lyceum's rector.

Baltasar Lopes became known in his home country as the 'advocate of the people'. He defended people from underprivileged classes who had no money for a lawyer, working only for the cause of justice. In the short novel 'A Caderneta' (The Notebook), Lopes describes how he became the defender of the defenceless poor.

Baltasar Lopes published articles in many journals in Cape Verde and other Portuguese-speaking countries, such as Atlantico, Vertice, Coloquio, and Mensagem (CEI). In addition to Chiquinho, A Caderneta and O dialecto crioulo de Cabo Verde, he also published Cabo Verde visto por Gilberto Freyr, Antologia da Ficção Cabo-Verdiana Contemporânea (an anthology of Cape Verdean fiction), Cântico da Manhã Futura (volume of poetry) and Os Trabalhos e os Dias (short stories).

Lopes was featured on a Cape Verdean $500 escudo note which was issued between 1992 and 2000.

Selected publications

Baltasar Lopes, Osvaldo Alcântara and Pasárgada / Aberto Carvalho.
In: Signótica : revista do Mestrado em Letras e Lingüística, vol.26, no. 1, 2014

Claridade : a palavra dos outros /  Fátima Bettencourt; Ausenda Silva. - Praia : Instituto da Biblioteca Nacional e do Livro, 2010

Escritos filológicos e outros ensaios / Baltasar Lopes; Analdo França; Alberto Carvalho. - Praia : Instituto da Biblioteca Nacional e do Livro, 2010

Simpósio Internacional sobre Cultura e Literatura Cabo-Verdianas : Actas (Mindelo, 23-27.11.1986) / Tomé Varela da Silva; Instituto da Biblioteca Nacional e do Livro (Cape Verde); Fundação Amílcar Cabral; Simpósio Internacional sobre Cultura e Literatura Cabo-Verdianas (1986 : Mindelo, Cape Verde). - Praia : Instituto da Biblioteca Nacional e do Livro, 2010

Baltasar Lopes : 1907-1989 : Um homem arquipélago na linha de todas as batalhas : itinerário biográfico até o ano de 1940 = Baltasar Lopes : 1907-1989 : un homme archipel sur le front de toutes les batailles : itinéraire biographique jusqu'à l'année 1940 / Leão Lopes. Rennes : Université Rennes 2-Haute Bretagne, 2002. Thèse de doctorat.

Littératures du Cap-Vert de Guinée-Bissao de São Tomé et Principe / Bernard Magnier; Martin Becker. - Paris : Clef. 1993

Chiquinho / Baltasar Lopes. - Linda-a-Velha : África, 1984

O dialecto crioulo de Cabo Verde / Baltasar Lopes; Junta das Missões Geográficas e de Investigações do Ultramar; Centro de Estudos Políticos e Sociais. - Lisboa : Imprensa nacional, 1957

The Eruption of Insular Identities: A Comparative Study of Azorean and Cape Verdean Prose 

Timeline of Cape Verdean male writers via DBpedia and Wikidata