António Osório was born in 1933 and published his first book in 1972, when he was almost forty. Descended from a family with an impressive literary and artistic tradition – Ana de Castro Osório (1872–1935), for instance, was one of Portugal’s first writers of children’s literature and also published the first edition of the greatest work of Portuguese symbolist poetry, Clepsidra, by Camilo Pessanha – António Osório pursued a career in law. He served both as the head of the Portuguese Bar Association and as president of the Portuguese Association for Environmental Law. This concern for the environment is reflected in his poetry, which can justifiably be called ‘ecological’. 

Manuel António Pina was born in 1943. He took a degree in law, worked as a journalist for three decades and still regularly writes for newspapers as a columnist. His literary work, with more than fifty published titles, includes poetry, children’s literature, theatre, fiction, essays and commentary. His poetic debut, in 1974, featured one of the longest and oddest titles of Portuguese poetry: Ainda Não É o Fim nem o Princípio do Mundo Calma É Apenas Um Pouco Tarde (It’s Not Yet the End Nor the Beginning Calm Down It’s Just a Little Late). The laconic title of his most recent work – Os Livros (Books) – makes for a sharp contrast.