Honourable Minister for Culture
Honourable President of the Portuguese Author’s Association
Honourable Chairman of Caixa Geral de Depósitos
Distinguished Laureate
Ladies and Gentlemen,

I am very pleased to be here today, to present the Vida Literária Prize to Professor Vítor Aguiar e Silva.

Especially pleased for the public recognition of the activity which the laureate has developed on behalf of the Portuguese language and culture, both at Home and Abroad.

But pleased as well for this prize being awarded by the Portuguese Author’s Association, through which tribute is paid to someone who has accomplished so much on behalf of the knowledge, dissemination and prestige of literature, especially our literature.

This prize is named «Vida Literária», and it would be hard to find anyone who could have consecrated his life so intensely to literature as Professor Aguiar e Silva.

Only a dedication such as his could explain the huge number of academic reports that bear his name, or the wisdom of his comments concerning some of our major authors, starting from Camões, or even the work he has carried out in the university or in other institutions in defence of our national language.

In effect, Vítor Aguiar e Silva is not just an erudite and cultured researcher who published, among many other works, an internationally recognized Theory of Literature, with translations which go from Spanish to Japanese.

He is also the teacher who is the image of successive generations of students, who either attended his classes or learned from his writings.

Above all, Aguiar e Silva is a humanist, for whom the issues of education, of the teaching of Portuguese, of the defence and promotion of our language and our literary heritage have been a constant inspiration, not just academically but civically as well.

I would anyway wish to recall here the relevant work he developed at the head of the committee that undertook the setting up of the Camões Institute, as well as the Portuguese Language National Committee, institutions to which I was pleased to appoint him when I was prime minister.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

In our time, when so many doubts and apprehensions are raised concerning educational issues, it is extremely gratifying to pay tribute to someone who, such as Professor Aguiar e Silva referred to himself, not so very long ago, as a «university farmer», proud of his «harvests».

We must be grateful to these «farmers», to all those who give their best towards the prestige of our schools, towards the training of our children and for the preparation of future elites.

For these reasons I want to congratulate the Portuguese Author’s Association for the award of the prize, as well as Caixa Geral de Depósitos, that sponsors it.

I wish, above all, to sincerely congratulate Professor Aguiar e Silva.

I hope he will continue for many years, to «sow his seeds» as he has done until now.

The Country and especially his many readers are certainly very grateful.