Profile

Lídia Jorge, born in Boliqueime, Algarve, is one of the most esteemed contemporary Portuguese authors. She holds a degree in Romance Philology from the Faculty of Letters of the University of Lisbon, where she also served as a visiting professor between 1995 and 1999. Her extensive body of work spans novels, essays, theatre, chronicles, and children’s literature. Marked by originality and thematic depth, her writing has been translated into over twenty languages and is the subject of academic study both in Portugal and abroad. Among her most acclaimed novels are O Dia dos Prodígios (1980), A Costa dos Murmúrios (1988), O Vale da Paixão (1998), Os Memoráveis (2014), and Misericórdia (2022).

She has received numerous prestigious literary awards, including the Malheiro Dias Prize (1981), the D. Dinis Prize (1998), the Portuguese PEN Club Fiction Prize (1999 and 2023), the Grand Prize from the Portuguese Writers’ Association (2002 and 2022), the International Literature Prize of the Günter Grass Foundation (2006), the Grand Prize of the Portuguese Society of Authors (2007), the Latinidade Prize (2011), the Virgílio Ferreira Prize (2015), and both the Prix Médicis and the Eduardo Lourenço Prize (2023). She was awarded the 2025 Pessoa Prize, one of the highest honours in the national cultural landscape, in recognition of her exceptional contribution to literature and civic debate in Portugal. In her honor, the Lídia Jorge Chairs were established at the Universities of Geneva (2021), Massachusetts (2022), and Goiás (2024).

In the civic and institutional sphere, she has served on the General Council of the University of the Algarve, the High Authority for the Media, and is currently a Member of the Council of State (2021–2026), appointed by the President of the Republic. She has been awarded the Grã-Cruz da Ordem do Infante D. Henrique (2005) and the rank of Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres (2025). She holds honorary doctorates from the University of the Algarve (2010) and the University of Aveiro (2024).