Luís Romano de Madeira Melo

Luís Romano de Madeira Melo (10 June 1922 – 22 January 2010) was a bilingual poet, novelist, and folklorist who has written in Portuguese and the Capeverdean Crioulo of Santo Antão.

Biography Born in the northernmost town of Ponta do Sol in the Capeverdean island of Santo Antão, he prefers to refer to the Capeverdean language as "língua cabo-verdiana". He collaborated along with additional publishers and founded the Morabeza review.

In the late 1950s, Luís Romano joined the ideas of independence and became member of the PAIGC, captured by PIDE, he went to exile in Senegal, then Mauritania and Morocco where he travelled with an engineer from the salt industry, Algiers and Paris, Romano lived in Brazil for the remainder of his life. He visited his home country in Praia during the country's independence in 1975 and returned to Brazil. He also wrote poems especially Negrume (Lzimparim)

One of his poems can be found on the CD Poesia de Cabo Verde e Sete Poemas de Sebastião da Gama (2007) by Afonso Dias.

Publications Famintos, Romance de um povo (1962, novel in Portuguese) Clima (1963): Poems in Portuguese, Crioulo and in French Cabo Verde-Renascença de uma civilização no Atlântico médio (1967): Collection of poems and short-stories in Portuguese and Crioulo. Negrume/Lzimparin (1973): Short stories in Crioulo with translations in Portuguese Cem Anos de Literatura Caboverdiana [Hundred Years of Cape Verdean Literature] (1985) - historical work of national literature from Eugénio Tavares to 1985 Ilha (1991): Short stories from "Europafrica" and "Brasilamerica"; in Portuguese and partially in Crioulo) Kriolanda - Estigmas, 1999, São Vicente Kabverd Civilização e Cultura, 2000, Rio de Janeiro

Short-Stories "Nho Zidôr" (in Ilha), "Pasaport Kabverd" (in Ilha), "Daluz" (in Negrume), "Tánha" (in Negrume), "Destino" (in Negrume), "Estórias de Tipêde i Tilôbe" (in Cabo Verde-Renascença de uma civilização...)