Series

The Creative World of the Macanese

The Macanese are a community unique to Macau, giving rise to a distinctive literature and art. This series records Carlos Marreiros, Henrique de Senna Fernandes, Miguel de Senna Fernandes, José dos Santos Ferreira and Deolinda da Conceição — from architecture and the novel to patuá poetry and theatre — a creative world spanning generations.

A Community's Creative World

The Macanese are a community unique to Macau, blending Portuguese and Chinese heritage and giving rise to a distinctive language, literature and art. This series records several Macanese creators and their cultural contributions across generations.

The architect and painter Carlos Marreiros has shaped Macau's urban face through design and art; the novelist wrote of Macau's soul in works such as A Trança Feiticeira (The Bewitching Braid); his son carries on patuá theatre through the Dóci Papiaçám di Macau troupe; the poet (pen-name Adé) is the foremost voice of patuá poetry; and was the first Macanese woman writer, remembered for her short-story collection Cheong-Sam.

Architecture and the Novel

Legacy archive1957-

Carlos Marreiros: the Macanese architect, painter, and heritage advocate

Carlos Marreiros

Carlos Marreiros (b. 1957, Macau) is a Macanese architect, urban planner, painter, and cultural figure. A graduate of the Lisbon fine-arts academy's architecture department, he has designed buildings across Macau, Hong Kong, and Portugal and was responsible for the Macau Pavilion at Shanghai Expo 2010. A long-standing advocate for Macau's heritage, he turned the Holy House of Mercy's Albergue SCM into a cultural and arts venue, and stands as a leading figure of Sino-Portuguese cultural exchange.

MacaneseArchitectureCulture

Legacy archive1923-2010

Henrique de Senna Fernandes: the Macanese novelist who chronicled the city in fiction

Henrique de Senna Fernandes

Henrique de Senna Fernandes (1923–2010) was a Macanese writer and lawyer. He studied law at the University of Coimbra in Portugal and wrote in Portuguese, setting much of his work in the Macau of the 1930s and 1940s and portraying the lives of the territory's mixed-race community. His novels A Trança Feiticeira (The Bewitching Braid) and Amor e Dedinhos de Pé were both adapted into films. Regarded as a guardian of Macau's memory, he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Macau in 2006.

土生葡人作家文學

Patuá Poetry and Theatre

Legacy archive1961-

Miguel de Senna Fernandes: the lawyer and playwright keeping patuá alive

Miguel de Senna Fernandes

Miguel de Senna Fernandes (b. 1961, Macau) is a Macanese lawyer, playwright, and theatre director, and the son of writer Henrique de Senna Fernandes. He has practised law since 1989 and served as a notary public since 1995. He writes and directs for Dóci Papiaçám di Macau, a troupe that performs entirely in Macanese patuá — an endangered Portuguese-based creole — working to preserve the language and the community's culture; the troupe's theatre has been listed as Macau intangible cultural heritage since 2012.