Filomena Embaló

In this Portuguese name, the first or maternal family name is Araújo and the second or paternal family name is Embaló.

Filomena Embaló
Born	1956 (age 69–70) Luanda, Angola
Occupation	Writer
Alma mater	University of Reims

Filomena Araújo Embaló (born 1956) 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 (novel)
• 2005: Carta aberta (stories)
• 2008: Coração cativo (poetry)