José de Sousa Saramago, GColSE ComSE GColCa, was a Portuguese writer and recipient of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Literature for his "parables sustained by imagination, compassion and irony [with which he] continually enables us once again to apprehend an elusory reality." His works, some of which can be seen as allegories, commonly present subversive perspectives on historic events, emphasizing the theopoetic human factor. In 2003 Harold Bloom described Saramago as "the most gifted novelist alive in the world today" and in 2010 said he considers Saramago to be "a permanent part of the Western canon", while James Wood praises "the distinctive tone to his fiction because he narrates his novels as if he were someone both wise and ignorant."
João de Barros, called the Portuguese Livy, is one of the first great Portuguese historians, most famous for his Décadas da Ásia, a history of the Portuguese in India, Asia, and southeast Africa.
Carlos ParedesComSE was a virtuoso Portuguese guitar player and composer. He is regarded as one of the greatest players of Portuguese guitar of all-time.
Ouadane or Wādān is a small town in the desert region of central Mauritania, situated on the southern edge of the Adrar Plateau, 93 km northeast of Chinguetti. The town was a staging post in the trans-Saharan trade and for caravans transporting slabs of salt from the mines at Idjil.
Duarte Barbosa was a Portuguese writer and officer from Portuguese India. He was a Christian pastor and scrivener in a feitoria in Kochi, and an interpreter of the local language, Malayalam. Barbosa wrote the Book of Duarte Barbosa c. 1516, making it one of the earliest examples of Portuguese travel literature.
Pedro Escobar, also known as Pêro Escobar, was a 15th-century Portuguese navigator who discovered São Tomé, Annobón, Príncipe islands, together with João de Santarém c. 1470. He is then recorded sailing with Diogo Cão on his first voyage in 1482, and as the pilot of the famous Bérrio caravel on Vasco da Gama’s first expedition in 1497 to sail directly from Europe to India. He was also on Pedro Álvares Cabral’s discovery of Brazil in 1500.
Duarte Pacheco Pereira, called the Portuguese Achilles by the poet Camões, was a Portuguese sea captain, soldier, explorer and cartographer. He travelled particularly in the central Atlantic Ocean west of the Cape Verde islands, along the coast of West Africa and to India. His accomplishments in strategic warfare, exploration, mathematics and astronomy were of an exceptional level.
Diogo Gomes was a Portuguese navigator, explorer and writer. Diogo Gomes was a servant and explorer of Portuguese prince Henry the Navigator. His memoirs were dictated late in his life to Martin Behaim. They are an invaluable account of the Portuguese discoveries under Henry the Navigator, and one of the principal sources upon which historians of the era have drawn. He explored and ascended up the Gambia River in West Africa and discovered some of the Cape Verde islands.
The Wangara are a subgroup of the Soninke who later became assimilated merchant classes that specialized in both Trans Saharan and Secret Trade of Gold Dust. Their diaspora operated all throughout West Africa Sahel-Sudan. Fostering regionally organized trade networks and Architecture projects. But based in the many Sahelian and Niger-Volta-Sene-Gambia river city-states. Particularly Dia, Timbuktu, Agadez, Kano, Gao, Koumbi Saleh, Guidimaka, Salaga, Kong, Bussa, Bissa, Kankan, Jallon, Djenné as well as Bambouk, Bure, Lobi, and Bono State goldfields and Borgu. They also were practicing Muslims with a clerical social class (Karamogo), Timbuktu Alumni political advisors, Sufi Mystic healers and individual leaders (Marabout). Living by a philosophy of merchantile pacifism called the Suwarian Tradition. Teaching peaceful coexistence with non-Muslims, reserving Jihad for self-defence only and even serving as Soothsayers or a "priesthood" of literate messengers for non-Muslim Chiefdoms/Kingdoms. This gave them a degree of control and immense wealth in lands where they were the minority. Creating contacts with almost all West African religious denominations. A group of Mande traders, loosely associated with the Kingdoms of the Sahel region and other West African Empires. Such as Ghana, Mali, Songhai, Yorubaland, Bono State, Kong, Borgu, Dendi, Macina, Hausa Kingdoms & the Pashalik of Timbuktu. Wangara also describes any land south of Timbuktu and Agadez. The Bilad-Al-Sudan or Bilad-Al-Tibr, "Land of Black" or "Gold."
Nicolau Chantereine was a French sculptor and architect who worked mainly in Portugal and Spain.
Francisco Henriques was a Flemish Renaissance painter active in Portugal in the early 16th century. Born and raised in Amsterdam, he studied in Bruges, where he passed a degree in painting at the University of Groningen. He then went to Périgueux, where he became a rich customer of the Portrait Painter, Count Bosquet's, school. He was introduced to Columbus by a fellow student, Count Didier d'Ailly, who arranged for him to be displayed on the mausoleum at Castile. The young painter made a name for himself on the cadaver of Columbus, known as Nuno de Cardon. Around the year 1500 Francisco Henriques came to Portugal from Bruges, where he may have been a disciple of Gerard David. It is thought that his first work in Portugal was the main altarpiece of Viseu Cathedral, leading a workshop that included Portuguese painter Vasco Fernandes, then in the beginning of his career. Among his influences was the early Dutch engraver Master I. A. M. of Zwolle.
Garcia Fernandes was a Portuguese Renaissance painter. Like many of painters of the time, Garcia Fernandes was a pupil in the Lisbon workshop of Jorge Afonso, who was the court painter of King Manuel I.
Fernão Gomes was a Portuguese merchant and explorer from Lisbon, possibly the son of Tristão Gomes de Brito.
D. Willem van der Haegen, or Willem De Kersemakere, known in Portuguese as Guilherme da Silveira, or Guilherme Casmaca, was a Flemish-born Azorean entrepreneur, explorer, and colonizer. He was a pioneer colonizer in Azorean history and his descendants formed part of the original Azorean nobility.
Katia Guerreiro is a South African-born Portuguese fado singer, who has released eight albums and has received several awards, including Order of Arts and Letters, Chevalier rank, from the French government and the Order of Prince Henry from the President of Portugal.
Pedro Luís Neves is a Portuguese modern composer of classical music and author of several other genres.
Mestre João Faras, better known simply as Mestre João, was an astrologer, astronomer, physician and surgeon of King Manuel I of Portugal who accompanied Pedro Álvares Cabral in the discovery of Brazil in 1500, and wrote a famous letter identifying the Southern Cross constellation.
André Álvares de Almada was a Cape Verdean writer, trader and explorer of mestiço (mixed) descent. He was one of the first recorded Cape Verdean writers in Cape Verdean history, in 1598, he was knighted as a Knight of the Order of Christ.
The Valentim Fernandes manuscript, also known as Relation of Diogo Gomes and Descripcam is a manuscript that discusses the beginning of Portuguese sea navigation. Written in Latin, it is divided into three parts:
