Alexandre O'Neill

Statue of the poet

Alexandre Manuel Vahia de Castro O'Neill de Bulhões (born December 19, 1924 in Lisbon , Portugal , † August 21, 1986 in Lisbon) was a Portuguese poet of Irish descent. He is considered the most important surrealist poet in Portugal in the 20th century. He has also worked as a newspaper columnist , screenwriter , television critic , translator and songwriter .

Life

Alexandre O'Neill, as he simply called himself, was born in Lisbon in 1924 as a descendant of Irish immigrants who immigrated to Portugal around 1840. As a teenager, Alexandre was considered sad and withdrawn. His aunt, Maria O'Neil , was one of the leading feminists and suffragettes of her time in Portugal and also worked as a writer and spiritualist . The youngster often took part in such seances with his eccentric aunt. He grew up in a bibliophile household, read a lot and was the first to discover Teixeira de Pascoaes for himself . He started writing as a high school student. His very first publication had a poem in a magazine in 1942. In 1944 he attended the nautical school in Lisbon for a year because he actually wanted to become a ship's captain, but left the school without a qualification. From 1946 to 1952 he worked as an employee in a savings bank.

In Lisbon he co-founded a group of surrealists with other authors and artists. His first book of his own was published in 1949 under the name A ampela de miraculosa . As a young man, he briefly had a liaison with the French surrealist Nora Mitrani .

In 1953 he was imprisoned in Caxias State Prison for 40 days for his work . He had already been observed and observed by the PIDE beforehand and was considered an " enemy of the state ". In 1966 some of his poems were translated into Italian.

He also wrote screenplays for television and for the cinema, worked as a columnist for the Diario de Lisboa, in the 1970s also under a pseudonym as a television critic, wrote the text for the fado "Gaivota", which was sung by Amália Rodrigues and translated a . a. Wladimir Wladimirowitsch Mayakowski , Fyodor Michailowitsch Dostojewski and Alfred Jarry into Portuguese.

He was married twice and had two sons. The first woman was the famous director Noémia Delgado . He was married to her from 1955 to 1971 and had a son, the star photographer Alexandre Delgado O'Neill (1959-1993), who died in the USA . His second wife, Teresa Gouveia , worked as a politician in Portugal, she was a minister (foreign affairs and culture) and a member of the Portuguese parliament on several occasions .

In 1986 Alexandre O'Neill died of heart problems in Lisbon.

In 2004 the director Fernando Lopes shot a documentary about O'Neill, which was also released on DVD (in a double edition with his documentary about Pina Bausch in Lisbon).

Works (selection)

• A ampela de miraclosa, 1949, poetry.
• Tempo de Fantasmas, 1951, poetry.
• Poemas com Endereco, 1962, poetry.
• No Reino da Dinamarca, (Obra Poetica 1951–1965), 1967, poetry.

swell

• Recently added poets ( Memento of May 4, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
• ALEXANDRE O'NEILL

Web links

• Alexandre O'Neill in the Internet Movie Database (English)