Jos\u00e9 Lu\u00eds Mendon\u00e7a was born in 1955 as Golungo Alto in northern Angola. He studied law at the Catholic university in Luanda and began writing poems and articles early on for student publications. Then, like all young men at the time, he was drafted into the army and fought in the civil war that broke out in the wake of Angola\u2019s independence. He was later the cultural attach\u00e9 to the Angolan embassy in Paris.<\/p>\n
Mendon\u00e7a made his writing debut with a volume of poetry called \u00bbChuva novembrina\u00ab (1981, tr: November Rain), which won the Sagrada Esperan\u00e7a prize, named for the title of the first volume of poetry by Agostinho Neto. Mendon\u00e7a says that he regards writing poetry as a way of relaxing and killing time, and to date he has had more than 15 volumes published in Luanda, Portugal, and Brazil. With \u00bbUm Voo de Borboleta no mecanismo inerte do tempo\u00ab (2005, tr: The Flight of the Butterfly in the Inert Mechanism of Time) he won the prize offered by Angola\u2019s Culture Ministry in honor of the 30th anniversary of the country\u2019s independence. In his poems, Mendon\u00e7a deals indirectly with historical and contemporary events in Angola. He has also had several short stories published about his experiences in the war. Those experiences are also at the heart of his first novel, \u00bbEl reino das Casuarinas\u00ab (tr: The Kingdom of the Cassowaries), published in 2014 simultaneously in Luanda and Lisbon. Recently Mendon\u00e7a has been exploring the decade between 1977 and 1987, juxtaposing lunacy and utopia. With his questions, he is breaking a taboo, as 1977 was the year of the failed coup against Agostinho Neto\u2019s government, in the wake of which thousands of people were killed and the dream of a peaceful republic was over for the time being. In that sense, Mendon\u00e7a\u2019s book ties in with Alejo Carpentier\u2019s novel \u00bbEl reino de este mundo\u00ab (Eng: \u00bbThe Kingdom of This World\u00ab), which dealt with the disappointments and frustration that followed Haiti\u2019s independence. Some of Mendon\u00e7a\u2019s poems were published in German in the anthology \u00bbM\u00f6gen Pitangas wachsen. Ein zweisprachiges Lesebuch\u00ab (2014, tr: Let Pitangas Grow. A dual language reader), and a fragment of his novel appeared in \u00bbWelwitschia\u00ab (2015), the magazine of the Angolan embassy in Berlin.<\/p>\n
Since 2012, Mendon\u00e7a has been the chief editor of the bi-monthly magazine \u00bbCultura. Jornal Angolano de Arte y Literatura,\u00ab which appears as a supplement to the daily \u00bbJornal de Angola.\u00ab The magazine profiles writers, musicians, dancers, filmmakers, and visual artists, with interpretations and critiques of their work. Mendon\u00e7a often writes a column providing commentary on current events. As such, he is today one of the leading critical voices in Angola.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11968,"template":"","jct-role":[1080],"jct-origin":[658,441],"jct-ilb-years":[609],"class_list":["post-40155","authors","type-authors","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","jct-role-author","jct-origin-angola-en","jct-origin-angola","jct-ilb-years-2015-en"],"yoast_head":"\n