Agostinho Neto
António Agostinho Neto
Poet and First President of Angola · 1922–1979
Who is Agostinho Neto?
António Agostinho Neto was born on 17 September 1922 in Icolo e Bengo, Angola, to parents who worked as Methodist schoolteachers, his father also a lay pastor. He trained as a physician, studying medicine in Coimbra and Lisbon while repeated imprisonment by the Portuguese colonial secret police for anti-colonial activity interrupted his studies for years. Alongside medicine he became known as a poet, publishing his first volume of verse in Luanda in 1948 and later the acclaimed collection Sagrada Esperança (Sacred Hope), which gave voice to the suffering and hope of colonized Angolans under Portuguese rule. He helped found and later led the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), directing the armed independence struggle from exile after escaping Portugal. When Angola declared independence on 11 November 1975, Neto became the country's first president, a position he held until his death in Moscow on 10 September 1979 during medical treatment. His birthday is now observed in Angola as National Heroes' Day, and the country's main public university bears his name.
Sources: Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Agostinho Neto," biography entry · Agostinho Neto, Sagrada Esperança (Sacred Hope), Angolan Writers' Union edition, 1986 · BlackPast.org, "Agostinho Neto (1922-1979)"