Caetano da Costa Alegre

Caetano da Costa Alegre (born April 26, 1864 - April 18, 1890 ) was a Portuguese poet of Saotomian origin.

Born into a Cape Verdean Creole family in the Portuguese colony of São Tomé off the African coast , he settled in Portugal in 1882 . He attended the Faculty of Medicine in Lisbon with the intention of becoming a marine doctor; however, he died of tuberculosis before that dream was fulfilled.

In 1916 his friend, the journalist Cruz Magalhãez, published the poetry that Costa Alegre wrote during his eight years in Portugal. The work, written in the popular romanticist style of the time, was an immediate success, not least because of the way in which it celebrated its African origins and expressed the longing for the homeland of São Tomé, but also because of the description of the feeling of alienation due to its race . He expresses his sadness after being rejected by a white woman because of his skin color , one of the earliest attempts by an African author on the subject of racial differences.

Although Costa Alegres style is European, his work makes him the forerunner of later African authors who dealt with the topics of race, alienation and nostalgic references to the past (in his case his memories of São Tomé).