Fernando Venâncio

Who is Fernando Venâncio?

Fernando Venâncio is a Portuguese born writer, intellectual, literary critic, linguist and academic. At present he holds Dutch nationality.

Fernado Venâncio spent his childhood in Lisbon and completed his secondary school in the northern Portuguese city of Braga. He studied Philosophy in Vila Nova de Ourém and Theology in Lisbon. In 1970 he moves to the Netherlands, where he eventually completes his studies in linguistics at the University of Amsterdam in 1976. Two years later he starts lecturing at the department of Portuguese studies in the University of Nijmegen. From 1984 to 1988 he taught at the University of Utrecht, eventually returning to the University of Amsterdam to teach Portuguese language and culture, until today. In 1995 Venâncio completed his doctoral degree with a thesis on Portuguese language.

He is an accomplished author and a regular contributor to prestigious journals such as Jornal Literário, Ler and Colóquio/Letras, working as a literary critic. He also publishes in the Portuguese newspaper Expresso and in the magazine Visão. Until March 2008, he was a regular contributor in the collective blog Aspirina B.