Teolinda Gersão nasceu em Coimbra, estudou Germanística, Romanística e Anglística nas Universidades de Coimbra, Tübingen e Berlim, foi Leitora de Português na Universidade Técnica de Berlim, assistente na Faculdade de Letras de Lisboa e depois de provas académicas professora catedrática da Universidade Nova de Lisboa, onde ensinou Literatura Alemã e Literatura Comparada.
Além da permanência de três anos na Alemanha viveu dois anos em São Paulo, Brasil, e conheceu Moçambique, onde decorre o romance de 1997 A Árvore das Palavras.
Autora sobretudo de romances, publicou até agora duas novelas (Os Teclados e Os Anjos) e duas colectâneas de contos (Histórias de Ver e Andar e A Mulher que prendeu a Chuva).
Quatro dos seus livros foram adaptados ao teatro e encenados em Portugal, Alemanha e Roménia.
Dois dos contos deram origem a curtas metragens e está a ser feita uma longa metragem a partir do romance Passagens.
Foi escritora-residente na Universidade de Berkeley em 2004.
O seu livro mais recente é Prantos, Amores e Outros Desvarios (2016).
Vive em Lisboa.
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LIVROS
PRANTOS, AMORES E OUTROS DESVARIOS (2016)
PASSAGENS (2014)
AS ÁGUAS LIVRES (2013)
A CIDADE DE ULISSES (2011)
A MULHER QUE PRENDEU A CHUVA (2007)
HISTÓRIAS DE VER E ANDAR (2003)
O MENSAGEIRO E OUTRAS HISTÓRIAS COM ANJOS (2003); OS TECLADOS & TRÊS HISTÓRIAS COM ANJOS (2012)
OS ANJOS (2000)
OS TECLADOS (1999)
A ÁRVORE DAS PALAVRAS (1997)
A CASA DA CABEÇA DE CAVALO (1995)
O CAVALO DE SOL (1989)
OS GUARDA-CHUVAS CINTILANTES (1984)
HISTÓRIA DO HOMEM NA GAIOLA E DO PÁSSARO ENCARNADO (1982)
PAISAGEM COM MULHER E MAR AO FUNDO (1982)
O SILÊNCIO (1981)
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BIOGRAPHICAL DATA
Teolinda Gersão was born in Coimbra (Portugal). After a degree in English and German Studies at the University of Coimbra, she did post-graduate studies in Germany at the Universities of Tübingen and Berlin; during her last year in Berlin, she was a Lecturer in Portuguese at the Technical University. She returned to Portugal and taught at the University of Lisbon, and later at the New University of Lisbon, where she was full Professor of German Literature and Comparative Literature until 1995. She has been a full-time writer since 1995.
In addition to her three years in Germany, she lived for two years in São Paulo (Brazil) and for some time in Mozambique, the capital of which (then Lourenço Marques, now Maputo) is the setting for her 1997 novel A Árvore das Palavras (The Word Tree, Dedalus, UK, 2010).
Her work has received some of the most important awards for novels and short stories in Portugal: the Pen Club Prize for Novel in 1981 and 1989, the Grand Prix for Novel from the Portuguese Writers´ Association in 1995, the Fiction Prize of the ICLA (International Critics´ Literary Association) in 1999 and, in 2001, the Grand Prix for Short-Story from the Portuguese Writers´ Association. Her book of short stories A Mulher que Prendeu a Chuva (The Woman who Stole the Rain), 2007, won the Maxima Review Literary Prize and the Fiction Prize given by the Inês de Castro Foundation in 2008. The novel Passages received the Fernando Namora Prize in 2015.
Four of her books were adapted for the theatre and staged in Portugal, Germany and Romania. The theatrical version of her novel A Casa da Cabeça de Cavalo (The House of the Horse´s Head) won the Grand Prix at the International Theatre Festival, in Bucarest in 1995.
Two short-stories inspired short-films and a film is being shot based on the novel Passages.
She was Writer-in-Residence at Berkeley University in 2004 and her work has been translated into 11 languages.
Her latest book, Passagens, was published in 2014.
A new book is coming out in October 2016.
BOOKS (See above)
DICTIONARY ENTRIES
Dicionário de Literatura Portuguesa, organização e direcção de Álvaro Manuel Machado, Lisbon, Presença, 1996, pp. 220-222
BIBLOS, Enciclopédia Verbo de Literaturas de Língua Portuguesa, vol. II, Lisbon/São Paulo, Editorial Verbo, 1997, pp. 819-822
Grande Enciclopédia Portuguesa e Brasileira, vol. III, Lisbon, 1998, p. 478
Guide to Womens’s Literature Throughout the World, Claire Buck (Ed.), Columbia, 1992
Kindlers Neues Literatur Lexikon
Brockhaus Enzyklopaedie in 24 Baenden
Dictionary of International Biography, IBC, Cambridge
2000 Outstanding Writers of the 20th Century, IBC, Cambridge
International Who´s Who of Professional and Business Women, American Biographical Institute
International Authors and Writers Who´s Who,17th, IBC, Cambridge
Marquis Who´s Who in the World
Dictionary of Literary Biography – Portuguese Writers, vol. 287. Edited by Monica Rector and Frank Clark. Farmington Hills, M.I. The Gaye Group Inc, 2004. See Alguma Bibliografia para Leitura
