Having grown up in a bilingual English-Spanish environment, my passion for language learning is not surprising. I decided to study Portuguese ab-initio and French at Queen’s University Belfast in 2018, and since then the Portuguese language has become very close to my heart.

Despite the pandemic, I was lucky enough to spend two summers in Lisbon, first in 2019 in the Faculdade de Letras da Universidade de Lisboa, and then in 2021 in the Lusa Language School. Both experiences allowed me to improve my linguistic proficiency and deepened my passion for Portuguese culture. These experiences also motivated me to apply for Chairperson of the QUB Spanish and Portuguese Society so that I could share my love of lusophone cultures on campus. We organised events such as Brazilian Carnaval and we fundraised for Fundação Ama Orfão in Guinea Bissau.  

At Queen’s I was very privileged to be exposed to both European and Brazilian Portuguese. We gained an all-encompassing insight into the history and culture of the Portuguese-speaking world and were encouraged to appreciate its diversity: the fall of the Portuguese Estado Novo, the novels and short stories of Mozambican Mia Couto and Paulina Chiziane, favela representation, post-colonial cinema, modern Brazilian documentaries evaluating Bolsonaro’s rise to power and much more.

In my final year, we studied decolonisation (political, military and cultural), from the 1970s to the present day, and its impact on contemporary Portugal and the former colonies in Africa. I was particularly interested in the concept of “Lusotropicalismo”, a theory with a complex colonial history, and how its legacy is one that still permeates contemporary Portugal. I was so inspired that I have decided to continue my studies and will undertake a Master of Research that will enable me to explore cultural production that provides an inclusive representation of the realities of post-colonial Portugal.

I am thrilled to be the recipient of the Ann Waterfall Student Award this year. I recognise that this is a great privilege, and I would like to extend my deepest thanks to the Anglo-Portuguese Society for their consideration. I would also like to thank my dedicated lecturers and the amazing Portuguese teaching staff at Queen’s for their unwavering support throughout my four years of study, especially through the most difficult period of the pandemic.

I started studying Portuguese from scratch in my first year at the University of Edinburgh. Coming from a linguistics background, I thoroughly enjoyed learning all about the Portuguese language and its quirks. What really surprised me, however, is how much I loved finding out more about the literature and history of the Portuguese-speaking nations, from the fierce poetry of Conceição Evaristo to the haunting prose of Luis Bernardo Honwana.