LOPES DA SILVA, BALTASAR

born April 23, 1907, Vila da Ribeira Brava, So Nicolau, Cape Verde Islands Baltasar also spelled Baltazar, pseudonym Osvaldo Alcntara African poet, novelist, and short-story writer who was instrumental in the shaping of modern Cape Verdean literature. Lopes was educated at the University of Lisbon, where he took a degree in law and in Romance philology. He then returned to Cape Verde and became a high school teacher and later principal of the Liceu Gil Eanes in So Vicente (retired 1972). His one novel, Chiquinho (1947), written in Portuguese, recreates the experiences of a Cape Verdean who grows up to understand that, in his land, life is a prolonged tragedy given meaning by the assertion of human courage, unselfishness, and dignity. Chiquinho, marking the beginning of realism in the Cape Verdean novel, is now a classic. His poems have been published in journals in Cape Verde, Portugal, and Brazil. As a creative writer, Lopes da Silva was one of the three founders in 1936 of the journal Claridade (Clarity). His published nonfiction includes Cabo Verde Visto por Gilberto Freire (1956; Cape Verde Seen by Gilberto Freire'), a study of Cape Verdean culture. He also edited an anthology of contemporary Cape Verdean fiction (1960).