Vítor Manuel de Aguiar e Silva

Vítor Manuel de Aguiar e Silva is a Portuguese literary scholar, essayist, and poet born in 1939 in Braga. He is one of the most important literary theorists and scholars in the Portuguese-speaking world, and his Teoria da Literatura (Theory of Literature, 1967) has been the foundational textbook for the study of literature in Portuguese universities for more than fifty years. Aguiar e Silva has spent his academic career at the University of Minho, where he has been a transformative figure in Portuguese literary education. His scholarly work on the theory of literary genres, the baroque, and Portuguese Renaissance literature has shaped the field across the Lusophone world. He received the Prémio Camões in 2020 (awarded 2021), recognizing not only his scholarly contribution but his broader role as a cultural custodian and teacher who has shaped the literary sensibility of generations of Portuguese readers and writers. Aguiar e Silva represents the humanistic scholarly tradition at its most valuable — a figure whose deep love for and understanding of literature has been generously shared through decades of teaching and publication.