The Iscte Library has selected "De Viva Voz: Ecos Biográficos da Sociedade Portuguesa" as its Book of the Month for October. Written by authors Ana Caetano, Anabela Pereira, Sónia Bernardo Correia and Magda Nico, and published by Editora Tinta da China, this work offers an analysis of the lives of 16 people born in the 1940s and 1950s, drawing connections between individual experiences and social changes in Portugal.

In order to deepen the discussion around the book, CIES is organizing on October 20, in a hybrid format, the Seminar "Writing about Lives, Telling Stories: Process and Challenges". This event will feature two of the authors, Anabela Pereira and Sónia Bernardo Correia, moderated by Luísa Tiago Oliveira.

ABSTRACT

In a person's biography we find what is absolutely unique about that life. No two biographies are the same. But we also find what that biography shares with other lives in similar historical and social contexts. In 16 stories of people who were born in the 1940s and 1950s and who bear witness to the complexity of experiences and ways of interpreting them in the spheres of family, work, education and leisure, the dynamics of a changing country are also echoed. In this book, which is the result of sociological research, we take a two-way look at biographies. A closer look at lives permeated with color, texture and patterns, in all their richness and uniqueness; and a more panoramic look at the history in which these stories take place. It is the relationship between biography and society that we find in these pages. It's the weight of the world, but also human creativity.