Miguel Sousa Tavares
Miguel Sousa Tavares is a portuguese journalist and was born in Porto, on the 25th June 1952. His mother, Sophia de Mello Breyner, was a poetess and his father, Francisco de Sousa Tavares, a lawyer and a journalist. After taking the Law course, he carried advocacy during twelve years, but left it permanently to become a full time journalist.
He first appeared at television in 1978, by entering the Radiotelevisão Portuguesa channel (Portuguese Radiotelevision).
In 1989, he was one of the creators of Grande Reportagem magazine (Big Report) and he became director of it in 1990, place where he settled during ten years. He also published some chronics and wrote to the journal Público (Public) from 1990 until 2002. At the same time, he also wrote chronics in other publications such as A Bola (The Ball, a sport journal), Máxima (Maximum, a female magazine) and in the online journal Diário Digital (Digital Diary).
He worked at SIC, a private TV channel, where he hosted information programmes such as "Crossfire". He left SIC and refused the invitation to be general director of RTP but, in 1999, he returned to the television.
He entered TVI in 1999 where he hosted the programme Legítima Defesa (Self Defense) and in 2000 he started to work as a fixed commentator at the Jornal Nacional (Nacional Journal, in TVI).
He also released various books, and almost all of them are chronics. The first one, Sahara, a República da Areia (Sahara, the Sand Republic), was edited in 1985 and was part of a report. Ten years later he wrote a collection of political texts called Um Nómada no Oásis (A Nomadic in the Oasis) and O Segredo do Rio (The Secret of the River, a children story). In 1998, the book called Sul (South) came out and in 2001 the book called Não te Deixarei Morrrer, David Crockett (I won't let you die, David Crockett). In this last year, was also edited Anos Perdidos (Lost Years), a colection of chronics dedicated to the govern of António Guterres.
His first novel was Equador (Equator), first edited in 2003 and which sold more than 370 thousand copies. This novel was so sucessful that posteriorly was released in Brazil, Germany, Spain, Latin America, Czech Republic and the Netherlands, and also won the 25th edition of the Grinzane Cavour prize for the best foreign novel of the year, in Italy. In October of 2007, Miguel Sousa Tavares released Rio das Flores (River of Flowers), also a success.
“It’s almost always sadder to stay than to depart”
“Tenho medo que a liberdade se torne um vício”
“And once again I believe that nothing that's important really becomes lost. We just delude ourselves, thinking that we own the things, the moments and the others. Still with me are all the dead persons who I loved, all the friends who turned away, all the happy days that faded. I lost nothing but the illusion that everything could be mine forever.”
“Quem nunca sofreu por amor nunca aprenderá a amar. Amar é o terror de perder o outro, é o medo do silêncio e do quarto deserto, de tudo o que se pensa sem puder falar, do que se murmura a sós sem ter a quem dizer em voz alta. É preciso sentir esse terror para saber o que é amar. E, quando enfim tudo desaba, quando o outro partiu e deixou atrás de si o silêncio e o quarto deserto por entre os escombros e a humilhação de uma felicidade desfeita, resta o orgulho de saber que se amou.”