Algarve Carlos Brito, historical leader of the PCP, presents his new book “Estar Presente” on the 21rd of March, at 18 pm, at Club Farense.
The work was published in the publisher “Lápis de Memórias”.
The presentation will be attended by the writer José Carlos Barros (winner of the 2021 Leya Prize).
Carlos Alfredo de Brito was born in Lourenço Marques, now Maputo (Mozambique), on February 9, 1933, moving to Alcoutim at the age of 4, where he attended primary school. In 1946 he moved to Lisbon, enrolled at the Veiga Beirão School and studied Accounting at the Instituto Comercial de Lisboa.
From 1950 on, he became involved in the opposition struggle against the dictatorship, being arrested for the first time by the PIDE in 1953, for being part of the university leadership of the Movement for Democratic Unity (MUD Juvenil). After leaving prison, he was invited to become a member of the Portuguese Communist Party (PCP), going underground as a party employee.
He was arrested again in 1956 (for seven months) and in 1959 (for 7 years and 2 months), accused of being a member, employee and carrying out management functions in the PCP. He went underground and studied for a year in Moscow at the Communist Party of the Soviet Union school for foreign cadres.
In 1967, he joined the central committee of the PCP and three years later he joined its executive committee, the main governing body of the party in the interior of the country. After April 25, 1974, he joined the political commission of the party's central committee.
For 16 years he served as deputy. First, in the Constituent Assembly, where he was vice-president of the communist group, and then in the Assembly of the Republic, where he was the parliamentary leader of the PCP for 15 years. In 1980 he was a candidate for the Presidency of the Republic having given up, on the eve of the election, in favor of the candidacy of General Ramalho Eanes.
In 1999, he took up residence in Alcoutim, where he became actively involved in local life. He belonged to the governing bodies of some associations, founded the Jornal do Baixo Guadiana (in 2000) and was a member of the Municipal Assembly.
In 2003, due to political and ideological differences, it broke its relationship with the PCP, continuing to maintain its ideologies, despite encouraging a spirit of change and renewal.
He started at a very young age in literary activity, publishing poems and articles in cultural magazines and in the daily and regional press. In 1992 he was appointed director of the newspaper «Avante», a position he held for 6 years. His literary work reflects his intense and long political commitment, but he only started to publish his books, in addition to political intervention texts, when he ceased his duties as parliamentary leader, in 1991. He has published almost two dozen books, including poetry , fiction, memoirs and on the issue of regional development.
He also collaborated in several collective works and is represented in several anthologies.
Throughout his life, he was awarded different decorations, namely the Grand Cross of the Order of Infante D. Henrique (1997), Grand Officer of the Order of Liberty (2004), by the President of the Republic, the Medal of Municipal Merit, silver grade (1996) and the medal of honor (2019), both by the Alcoutim Chamber.
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