João Casimiro Namorado de Aguiar (October 28, 1943, Lisbon – June 3, 2010, Lisbon) was a Portuguese

Portugal

Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...

 writer and journalist.He spent his youth in colonial Mozambique

Mozambique

Mozambique, officially the Republic of Mozambique , is a country in southeastern Africa bordered by the Indian Ocean to the east, Tanzania to the north, Malawi and Zambia to the northwest, Zimbabwe to the west and Swaziland and South Africa to the southwest...

.

After working for a time in the Portuguese tourist industry in Brussels

Brussels

Brussels , officially the Brussels Region or Brussels-Capital Region , is the capital of Belgium and the de facto capital of the European Union...

 and Amsterdam

Amsterdam

Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...

, he studied journalism at the Free University of Brussels

Free University of Brussels

The Free University of Brussels was a university in Brussels, Belgium. In 1969, it split into the Université Libre de Bruxelles and the Dutch-speaking Vrije Universiteit Brussel....

 and in 1976 returned to Portugal to work as a journalist.

He worked for RTP

Rádio e Televisão de Portugal

Rádio e Televisão de Portugal, S.A.,commonly known as RTP, is Portugal's public service broadcasting organization. It operates four terrestrial television channels and three national radio channels, as well as several satellite and cable offerings....

 (where he began his career in 1963) and a variety of daily and weekly periodicals such as the Daily News, A Luta, Diário Popular

Diario Popular

Diario Popular is a local newspaper published in Sarandí, Argentina, and read widely in the surrounding southern Greater Buenos Aires suburbs of Avellaneda, Lanús and Quilmes....

, O País, and Sábado. In 1981 he was named press secretary of the Ministry of Quality of Life, a short-lived government department concerned with sports and the environment. He was a regular contributor to the monthly magazine Superinteressante

Superinteressante

The Superinteressante is a Brazilian scientific and cultural magazine, known by its simple language focusing on the general public. Its name is equivalent to "Super-Interesting", in English...

and sat on its editorial board. He died of cancer on June 3, 2010, in Lisbon.

He dedicated himself to literature, being one of the most acclaimed Portuguese novelists in the genre of the historical novel.

Major works

• An Investigation of Portuguese Esotericism (Uma incursão no esoterismo português) (1983)
• The Voice of the Gods (A voz dos deuses) (1984)
• The Man With No Name (O homem sem nome) (1986)
• The Throne of the Most High (O trono do altíssimo) (1988)
• The Song of the Phantasms (O canto dos fantasmas) (1990)
• The Pearl-Eaters (Os comedores de pérolas) (1992)
• The Hour of Sertorius (A hora de Sertório) (1994)
• The Eulogy of the Spirits (A encomendação das almas) (1995)
• Solitary Navigator (Navegador solitário) (1996)
• Inês of Portugal (Inês de Portugal) (1997)
• The Dragon of Smoke (O dragão de fumo) (1998)
• The Green Cathedral (A catedral verde) (2000)
• A Goddess in the Fog (Uma deusa na bruma) (2003)
• The Seventh Hero (O sétimo herói) (2004)
• The Garden of Delights (O jardim das delícias) (2005)
• The Sitting Tiger (O tigre sentado) (2005, 2nd edition)
• Lapedo - A Child in the Valley (Lapedo – uma criança no vale) (2006)
• The Priory of the Cifrão (O priorado do cifrão) (2008)

Children's fiction

• The Group of Four (O Bando dos Quatro)
• Sebastian and the Secret Worlds (Sebastião e os Mundos Secretos)

Other works

• The White Orchid (A Orquídea Branca), libretto for an opera with music by Jorge Salgueiro (premiered October 27, 2008)
• I Saw the Third Reich Fall (Eu vi morrer o III Reich) by Manuel Homem de Mello (edited and with commentary by João Aguiar) (Ediciones Vega, Lisboa)

External links

Website with biography and photos Information about the author