Camões was a "great amateur" in Mozambique, influencing poetry

" Camões was a great amateur, he loved women and one of the reasons he was always in prison was precisely because he had several problems with women, especially married women (...). He arrived in 1567, he had no money to continue the journey to Portugal, he also had no money to live on the Island of Mozambique", described the Mozambican academic Lourenço do Rosário, in statements to the press, after giving the opening lecture of the second congress on the 500 years of Camões.

Mozambique hosts the second congress to mark the 500th anniversary of the birth of Luís de Camões, highlighting the Portuguese poet's relationship with the Indian Ocean and the Mozambican territory.

Lourenço do Rosário, essayist and literature professor, said that Camões was welcomed "in the Macúti", houses built with local material, "by the Muthian women" (woman, in the local language of Nampula), when he arrived on the Island of Mozambique.

"He wrote that poem 'Endechas a Bárbara Escrava', which is one of the most beautiful poems he wrote about women, so Camões knew how to sing about women", added Lourenço do Rosário.

The former rector of the Polytechnic University of Maputo and also a member of the jury for the Leya Prize criticized Portugal for not valuing Camões' achievements for the Portuguese empire in the east, arguing that one cannot "alienate this reality" that the poet "began writing and finished his works in Mozambique".

"So, we have this obligation to rescue this reading of Camões and go and see what he criticized in relation to Portugal's presence in the eastern empire", said the professor, asking for research to ensure the presence of Camões in schools based on his action in the east.

From this perspective, Lourenço do Rosário also recalled that Camões should be seen in Mozambique as someone who was "arrested, expelled and exiled", who fought as a soldier and lived in poverty, having suffered "deprivations" in the East, before Portugal presented him to the world as a "great Portuguese poet".

Lourenço do Rosário called for more research to influence political decisions regarding the presence of Camões in the country's educational programs. "We need to value what is ours, and Camões is ours, because he wrote here."

"There is a whole generation, a group of [Eduardo] White, Nelson Saúte, Rui Knopfli, especially the poets who are linked to the Island of Mozambique, who are greatly influenced by Camões' writing, by Camões' view of the world, not only from the point of view of love, but also of social criticism. Therefore, I think that Mozambican researchers have a lot of material to discover and influence our school textbooks. Not that heroic Camões from Portugal, but our Camões, from Mozambique," he said.

The Portuguese ambassador to Mozambique, also present at the opening of the congress, highlighted the academic movement in praising Camões as a "unifying element" of a culture and language that "is not just Portuguese", pointing to the poet as a "symbol of projection of the Portuguese-speaking community in the future".

"It is of global importance for everyone who speaks and communicates in Portuguese, but since we are in Mozambique I would say that it is especially important for Mozambique, given the historically proven connection", said António Costa Moura, calling for more investment in studies on Camões to expand the Portuguese language.

"This investment in the language is made through teaching, education and culture, hence the importance that, as ambassador in this country for four years, I have been placing on strengthening, diversifying activities, and the training component to be developed by the Portuguese School of Mozambique", he argued, adding that Portuguese should be a "lingua franca" in Mozambique, especially for communicating with the world.

The Camões Network in Africa and Asia, which promotes and encourages studies and publications on Camões, held the first congress on the 500th anniversary of the poet's birth last year in Macau, and in 2026, the aim is to take the same event to Goa, making a tour of the places where he passed through and lived, explained the organization.

Born 501 years ago, on June 10, 1524, in Lisbon, the poet-soldier Luís Vaz de Camões lived and wrote for about two years on the Island of Mozambique, on the old Rua do Fogo, where he also felt that love "is a fire that burns without being seen".

Read Also: APEL welcomes new guardianship and hopes for continuation of outreach work