José-Alberto Marques

Born in Torres Novas, he studied Law at the Faculty of Law of the University of Lisbon. Forced to abandon his studies for economic reasons, he worked in various professions while simultaneously pursuing a degree in History. He has lived in Abrantes since the 1960s and was a tenured Portuguese teacher at the D. Miguel de Almeida School. Among his various cultural and artistic activities, noteworthy contributions include his participation in the second issue of the magazine Poesia Experimental (1966), Operação 1 (1967), and the Conferência-Objeto (Quadrante Gallery, 1967). He received the 1st National Prize for Children's and Young Adult Literature during the 20th anniversary celebrations of the 25th of April Revolution, for his book A Magia dos Sinais (1996). In 1996, he received the medal of the city of Abrantes. Linked to the Portuguese experimental poetry movement since its earliest manifestations in the late 1950s, the work of José-Alberto Marques combines phonosemantic and graphosemantic experimentation with autobiographical lyricism and a sharp social and political awareness. Personal daily life is projected back into the collective social space, and the insistent presence of both is reflexively questioned by the materiality of language and writing. These are sometimes the object of fragmentation and graphic constellation operations, but also of narrative experimentation.