Filomena Embaló


Filomena Araújo Embaló is an Angolan-born Bissau-Guinean writer. She is the first woman in Guinea-Bissau to have published a novel.

Biography

Filomena Embaló was born in Luanda, Angola, in 1956 to parents from Cape Verde. She moved to Guinea-Bissau as a teenager, in 1975, and became naturalized there. Embaló then studied economics at the University of Reims in France. She holds a doctorate degree.
The 1998–1999 civil war in Guinea-Bissau sent Embaló into an identity crisis, which she explores in her first novel, Tiara, published in 1999. The first novel to be published by a Bissau-Guinean woman, Tiara deals with the fallout of colonialism in a fictionalized African country. It was published by the Instituto Camões in Mozambique.
Embaló, who writes in Portuguese, went on to publish a short story collection, Carta aberta, in 2005 and a poetry collection, Coração cativo, in 2008.
She has also written magazine and journal articles about Bissau-Guinean economics and literature.
Embaló is an avid campaigner for women's rights in Guinea-Bissau. She has worked as a civil servant at home and abroad, at NGOs including the Latin Union before its dissolution in 2012, and as a diplomat.

Works

  • 1999: Tiara
  • 2005: Carta aberta
  • 2008: ''Coração cativo''