The Minister of Culture, Youth and Sports, Margarida Balseiro Lopes, the president of Lisbon City Council, Carlos Moedas – who announced the inauguration of an António Lobo Antunes Library for this year – and the former first lady Manuela Ramalho Eanes were some of the political figures present at the mass present, in addition to representatives of various parties, from left to right.
Writers Afonso Reis Cabral, Margarida Rebelo Pinto and Rui Cardoso Martins, as well as actresses Maria Rueff and Paula Lobo Antunes, the latter niece of António Lobo Antunes, were other personalities present.
The funeral procession then went to the Benfica cemetery, in Lisbon.
António Lobo Antunes was born in Lisbon, on September 1, 1942, graduated in Medicine from the University of Lisbon in 1969, specializing in Psychiatry, which he later practiced at Hospital Miguel Bombarda. He chose to write full-time in 1985, to combat the depression that he said was common to everyone.
The Portuguese Republic awarded the author of “Memória de Elefante” with the grand cross of the Order of Sant’Iago da Espada, in 2004 and, in 2019, with the Order of Freedom. France awarded him the degree of “Commandeur” of the Order of Arts and Letters in 2008. He was awarded the Camões Prize in 2007.
On Friday, the President of the Republic deposited the great necklace of the Order of Camões in Jerónimos with António Lobo Antunes, having expressed the desire that the author have the National Pantheon as his final home.
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