Ana Paula Ribeiro Tavares, Angolan poet and historian, was born on 30 October 1952 in Lubango, in the province of Huíla, Angola. As a historian, Ana Paula Tavares collaborates with the Angolan Arquivo Histórico Nacional (National Historical Archive) and has conducted an extensive research in the areas of cultural patrimony, ethnology and museums, among others. Currently, her research is focused on Angolan literature. She coordinates a research group on African Literatures and Cultures at the CLEPUL (Centre of Lusophone and European Literatures and Cultures) at the University of Lisbon. Ana Paula Tavares is renowned as the contemporary female Angolan poet, publishing in the post-independence period. Her first book of poetry —Ritos de Passagem [Rites of Passage]— was published in Angola in 1985 and has been republished in Portugal in 2007. Since then, she launched several collections of poetry: O Lago da Lua (1999) [The Moon Lake], Dizes-me Coisas Amargas como Frutos (2001) [You Tell Me Things Bitter Like Fruits], Ex-Votos (2003) [Former Vows] and Manual para Amantes Desesperados (2005) [Manual for Desperate Lovers]. She is also an author of two volumes of chronicles: Sangue da Buganvília (1998) [Blood of Bougainvillea] and A Cabeça de Salomé (2004) [The Head of Salomé]. In 2005, she wrote a novel, co-authored by Manuel Jorge Marmelo, Os Olhos do Homem que Chorava no Rio [The Eyes of the Man who Cried in the River]. Her poems and chronicles have been translated into several languages and published in anthologies in Spain, France, Germany and Sweden.

The nation by Ana Paula Tavares:

"[...] as I see it, there are various processes at work in the construction of a nation. Historically speaking, it was a determining factor that one day the nation became independent and acquired a constitution. So, there’s a legal underpinning to this idea of the nation, but this legal underpinning is in no way synonymous and neither does it coincide with, the project of constructing a nation, which is something slow, more complex, and which involves the whole issue, which is fundamental for me, of looking at the common citizen of this vast space that has constitutionally been declared a nation and seeing how that citizen relates to the idea of the nation. For me, for all these thirty-five years, this has been almost like a work-in-progress, which is to say that an increasing number of citizens have had to deal with this issue of Angola having transformed itself into a nation, symbolically, metaphorically, or in a real way.”