Sara Pinto Coelho

Sarah Augusta de Lima Abreu Pinto Coelho, better known as Sara Pinto Coelho (1913 in Portuguese São Tomé and Príncipe – 1990 in Portugal), was a writer of fiction, plays and children's literature, as well as being a primary school teacher and, later, a radio theatre director.

Early life Pinto Coelho was born on 30 November 1913 in Roça Esperança, a village on the island of Príncipe in Portuguese São Tomé and Príncipe. She was the daughter of Manuel dos Santos e Abreu Jr. and Maria Sarah de Lima. Her birth in Principe was because her father had, unsuccessfully, gone there to seek his fortune. When she was young, her family returned to Portugal, where she qualified in Porto as a primary school teacher in 1933, graduating with distinction. She then taught for a decade in Porto and Braga, her mother's hometown.

She married José Augusto de Vasconcelos Pinto Coelho, a judge from a noble family. Their son was the journalist, Carlos Pinto Coelho and she had three daughters.

Later activities Her firm Catholic ideals led her, in the 1940s and 1950s, to work in the slums of the Portuguese Mozambique capital of Lourenço Marques, now Maputo, both as a primary school teacher and with Catholic charities. A strong supporter of the Estado Novo dictatorship in Portugal, she was quoted in a speech of April 1948 as saying that the Estado Novo'''s leader, António de Oliveira Salazar, found "in the pages of the Gospel, his doctrine of silence, sacrifice, and eternity". She began to move between her work in the slums and the salons of high society, meeting with the governor and the Church hierarchy, writing articles for newspapers, and being invited to meetings with visitors from the Portuguese capital of Lisbon. O Tesouro Maravilhoso (1947) Aventuras de um Carapau Dourado (1948) Memórias de uma Menina Velha'' (1994)