Ana Paula Tavares was born in Huíla in 1952. She completed a Bachelor’s degree in History at what was then the Faculty of Arts in Lubango, subsequently obtaining a Master’s degree in African Literature and a PhD in Anthropology at the Faculty of Arts in Lisbon and the New University of Lisbon, respectively. During the Angolan War of Independence, she took part in various literacy initiatives, run clandestinely in mission and catechism centres. Following the territory’s independence, she collaborated on the creation of school textbooks on the History of Africa and the History of Angola. She also held various posts in the fields of Culture, Museology and Heritage, having served as a delegate of the Ministry of Culture in Kwanza Sul (1978–1980), Senior Technician at the National Museum of Archaeology in Benguela (1980–1983), National Director of Cultural Heritage in Luanda (1985–1987) and Director of the Technical Office of the Secretary of State for Culture, also in the capital (1987–1991). Her teaching career began in Lubango when, at the age of just nineteen, she taught Portuguese and the History of Portugal at the Artur de Paiva Industrial and Commercial School; this continued in Lisbon, where she was a lecturer at the Portuguese Catholic University (1994–2000) and at the Faculty of Arts of the University of Lisbon (2010–2022). In Angola, she was a member of the Committee for the preparation of the project for a Faculty of Social Sciences, as well as the Committee for the Restructuring of Agostinho Neto University, an institution at which she was also a Visiting Lecturer. In the literary field, one of the many areas in which she has distinguished herself, she is the author of poetry, short stories and novels, having published, among others, Ritos de Passagem (1985), O Sangue da Buganvília (1998), Dizes-me coisas amargas como os frutos (2001), A Cabeça de Salomé (2004) and Poesia Reunida seguida de Água Selvagem (2023). A member of the Angolan Writers’ Union, her work has been honoured with the Mário António Literary Prize (2004), the Angolan National Prize for Culture and the Arts (2007), the Premio Internazionale Ceppo/Pistoia (2013) and the Guerra Junqueiro Literary Prize (2022). Most recently, in 2025, she was the winner of the Camões Prize, the most prestigious award given for literature written in the Portuguese language, with the jury highlighting the author’s “fruitful and consistent creative trajectory” and, in particular, her “restoration of the dignity of poetry”.