Mario de Andrade (1928-1990), as a poet, critic, and political activist expressed the struggle of the people of Angola (and other Portuguese colonies) for independence from colonial rule.

Mario Coelho Pinto de Andrade was born on August 21, 1928, in the town of Galungo Alto, Angola (then a Portuguese colony) on the southwest coast of Africa. Through his writings and actions, de Andrade sought to help liberate Angola from Portuguese colonial control and to assist it in its struggle for nationhood. Interestingly, in Brazil, another Mario de Andrade played a similar role--though somewhat earlier (1893-1945). The Brazilian sought to unite the Amazonian past with its Latin American present in a composite Brazilian literature, while the Angolan worked for an independent Angola to avoid any future need for reconciling with a Portuguese present. However, Angola today as an independent nation maintains vestiges of Portuguese influence in a number of spheres including...