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Biography of Mia Couto
António Emílio Leite Couto, Mia Couto, was born in Mozambique in the city of Beira, on July 5, 1955. Mia's father, Fernando Couto, a Portuguese immigrant born in Rio Tinto, was a journalist and a poet, belonging to the intellectual circles, were debates took place. He wrote two books that express his social concern regarding the situation of the conflict that existed in Mozambique at the time.
Mia Couto published his first poems in the newspaper Noticias da Beira, when he was 14. He thus began his literary journey in poetry . The literary genre is not an important issue in Mia's work, whose work combines fiction and poetry. He writes for the "pleasure of messing up the language".
In 1972, Mia went to medical school in Lourenço Marques. From 1974 he became a journalist and after the Independence, Mia was both a reporter and the director of the Mozambique Information Agency (AIM), of the weekly magazine Tempo and of the newspaper Noticias de Maputo. Mozambican journalism went through a difficult period at the time and some professionals questioned the work being done. Mia Couto created a personal style that announced already the his literary work.
For many years, the writer lived under the fire of the country's liberation war. From 1972 to 1975 (year of the Independence), he participated in the war as a member of Frelimo, the liberation movement lead by Samora Machel, that forced him to be undercover.
In 1985, Mia returned to the Eduardo Mondlane University in Lourenço Marques to take a degree in biology. In 1992, he was named responsible for the preservation of the natural reserve of the Inhaca Island. Today, he still does research on that area, Mia is also a biology university teacher, and runs a company that assesses environmental impacts. This biography was writen to the best of my knowledge by:
http://www.geocities.com/calhoguimas/
I thank them for their webpage and information and hope this translation is not to far from what they meant.
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The Environment company Mia Couto works for is:
Impacto - Projectos e Estudos Ambientais
The contacts are:
Contactos: Dr. John Hatton and Dr. Mia Couto (impacto@ambiente.uem.mz)