Ana Mafalda Leite

Ana Mafalda Leite is a poet, essayist and teacher. Throughout her career, she has also worked on her creative, editorial and critical practices, as well as essay writing and teaching. She is a Senior Associate Professor, with Habilitation, at the University of Lisbon’s Faculty of Arts and Humanities (FLUL-UL). She began her bachelor’s degree course in Romance Philology at the Eduardo Mondlane University -Mozambique and completed her course at the University of Lisbon’s Faculty of Arts and Humanities in 1978. She has a master’s degree in Brazilian and African Literature (1985), a PhD in African Literature in Portuguese (1989) and Habilitation (1999) from the Lisbon Faculty of Arts and Humanities. She did research work at the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) and at the Cheik Anta Diop University in Dakar. She has taught different programs on the subjects in the area of African Cultural and Literary Studies and has advised on master’s dissertations (13), PhD theses (19) and postdoctoral projects (11) on African literature, comparative literature and cultural and postcolonial studies. She has been an Integrated Researcher at CEsA (Centre for African and Development Studies – CSG/ISEG) since 2007. She has published seven (7) books, reprinted several times, edited and co-edited nineteen (19) books, published forty-seven (47) book chapters and thirty-one (31) articles, edited nine (9) magazine issues on African literary studies and postcolonial studies. She ran three (3) projects funded by the FCT on African literature, postcolonial studies and Indian Ocean studies (2008-2011; 2013-2015; 2016-2020). Some of her single-authored books, or co-organised books (with several reprints in Portugal, Mozambique, Brazil and an English language edition), are important critical reference books and fundamental in the area of ALP studies, given that they question the theoretical and critical aspects of African literature, particularly in terms of questioning genres (Epic Aspects in African Literature, Vega, 1996), the relationship between orality and writing (Orality & Writing in African Literature, Colibri, 2014), the framework of African literature in postcolonial studies (African Literature and Postcolonial Formulations, Colibri, 2014) and the interdisciplinary relationship between African literature, cinema and other arts (Nation and Postcolonial Narrative III: Literature & Cinema, 2018). She is the co-author of one of the first books about Lusophone African literature in English: The Postcolonial Literature of Lusophone Africa (Hurst, 1990). Her work has contributed to important critical dissemination and internationalisation of ALP, particularly through her teaching work as a visiting professor in several other universities. She is a member of the Editorial and Scientific Board of a number of national and foreign specialist magazines. She belongs to literary and scientific associations, of note being the International Association of Literary Critics (AICL), the Portuguese Writers’ Association (APE), PEN Club, Association por L’Étude des Littératures Africaines (APELA, France) and the International Association of African Studies (AFROLIC, Brazil). She is a member of the Mozambican Writers Association (AEMO) and an honorary member of the Angolan Academy of Arts and Humanities (AAL). She won the AFROLIC award in 2019 and the FEMINA Prize for Literature in 2015. Her current research interests are the relationships between Environmental Humanities and African Literature in Portuguese, World Literature and Indian Ocean Studies. As a poet she published 10 books of poetry.