Biography
José António Gomes. Born in Gaia (Portugal), in 1956. Five degrees in Germanic Philology (Oporto University), master's in Portuguese Literature and Culture and PhD in 20th-century Portuguese Literature at the Universidade Nova de Lisboa (New University of Lisbon). Category: Coordinating Professor. He has taught Literature and Music and supervises masters’ reports and PhD students at the School of Education in Porto, where he coordinates IEL-C, the Literary and Cultural Studies Research Nucleus of InED (Centre for Research and Innovation in Education), and the project “Militancy of Words: Poetry, Childhood and Linguistic and Literary Education”. He teaches at the Master in Children’s and Youth Literature as a Contribution to the Formation and Development of Reading Habits at the University of Santiago de Compostela (USC). Full researcher at CLP (Centre for Portuguese Literature) of the University of Coimbra, member of the Thematic Network “Literaturas Infantiles y Juveniles del Marco Ibérico e Iberoamericano” and of the research group Liter’21 (USC). He is a columnist in AbrilAbril: o outro lado das notícias (on-line newspaper) and the author of books and numerous articles, in national and international publications, about contemporary Portuguese literature and children’s and youth literature, including A Poesia na Literatura para a Infância (1993); Towards a History of Portuguese Children’s and Youth Literature (1997); Figurações do Desejo e da Infância em Eugénio de Andrade (2010); and A Música das Palavras: Sidónio Muralha, Matilde Rosa Araújo, Eugénio de Andrade, Luísa Ducla Soares, Manuel António Pina, João Pedro Mésseder (2017). He founded and directed the scientific journal Malasartes – Cadernos de Literatura para a Infância e a Juventude. Under the pen name João Pedro Mésseder, he has written poetry books and children’s books, having received the Maria Amália Vaz de Carvalho Award – Poetry (1999); Mention of the Jury of the Compostela Award for picture storybooks for children (2008); the Bissaya Barreto Award for Children’s Literature, in 2014; and the SPA Authors’ Award 2017 for Best Children’s Book published in 2016. Several of his poems for children were set to music by Suzana Ralha; the same happened with one of his poetic narratives set to music by Pedro Moura. They have been recorded by Bando dos Gambozinos. One of his research interests deals with the relationship between literature and music.
