Background
Urbano Tavares Rodrigues was born in Lisbon on December 6, 1923, son of a family of large landowners of Moura, Alentejo.
Urbano Tavares Rodrigues was born in Lisbon on December 6, 1923, son of a family of large landowners of Moura, Alentejo.
He attended primary school in Moura. After moving to Lisbon he joined the Camões Lyceum (Liceu Camões), where he was a fellow student of Luís Lindley Cintra and Antonio, brother of Vasco Gonçalves He graduated from the Faculty of Arts of the University of Lisbon, where he studied Romance Philology.
He was always linked to the Portuguese Communist Party. He spent some time in prison in Caxias, and for a long period he was in exile in France. He taught at the French universities of Montpellier, Aix and the Sorbonne in Paris.
He moved back to Portugal after the return of freedom of expression and democracy in Portugal on April 25, 1974.
In 1984 he obtained a Doctor of Philosophy in Literature for a thesis on the work of Manuel Teixeira Gomes. In 1993 he retired from the Faculty of Arts of the University of Lisbon as a full professor
Rodrigues wrote for various magazines and newspapers, including the Bulletin des Études Portugaises, Colóquio-Letras, Jornal de Letras, Vértice and Nouvel Ovservateur. This company published the Minotauro magazine.
Urbano Tavares Rodrigues died at the Capuchin Hospital in Lisbon on August 9, 2013.
He was a friend of Mário Soares from his youth, although they did not always agree over politics. He was director of the review Europa and theater critic for the journals O Século and Diário de Lisboa.
Rodrigues was a member of the Lisbon Academy of Science and the Academy of Brazilian Literature.