Sons Que Falam

[José] António Vera [de Azevedo] was born in Lisbon, in the parish of Mercês, on June 22, 1923, and died in the same city on December 26, 2012. He worked from a very young age: employed in commerce, insurance, public accounting and, from 1958 to 1987, in the Emigration services as a representative of the Portuguese government for emigration affairs in host countries and, later, as a senior technician, retiring from the former State Secretariat for Emigration and Portuguese Communities in that last year. In the service of Emigration he made numerous trips, requiring fluency in several languages. Among the courses he completed, the Social Policy course at the Higher Institute of Labor and Business Sciences in Lisbon stands out. He also attended the Faculty of Letters of Lisbon. Between 1947 and 1951 he collaborated in several literary publications, notably in Round Table, founded by António Manuel Couto Viana and David Mourão-Ferreira, in New Harvest and Atlantic, and was part of the magazine's friends TreeA close friend of the poets Daniel Filipe and Raul de Carvalho, he also fraternized with José Osório de Oliveira and José Terra. However, due to his professional duties and continuous travels, he was unable to maintain close contact with these friends and other cultivators of Portuguese literature. The publication of his poetic work, comprising eleven volumes—ten published during his lifetime and one posthumous—is due to the extremely dedicated efforts of his daughter, Maria José Martins de Azevedo. António Vera was also a short story writer and published a large number of articles throughout his life.