The 10th volume of the “Portuguese Theatre Biographies” collection is dedicated to Jorge de Faria (1888-1960), a leading name in Portuguese theatre criticism between the 1920s and the end of the 1950s. Faria worked on several newspapers, publishing columns and reviews that are essential sources for those wishing to know about the country’s theatrical past. His methodical observation and solid argumentation, based on deep cultural knowledge, gave him his still recognised prominent place in theatre criticism.

A compulsive collector, especially of everything related to theatre, Jorge de Faria had, at the end of his life, thousands of documents and an immense library. Part of this collection was donated to the Faculty of Arts of Coimbra University. Isabel Vidal, author of this volume, gives a detailed account of this process, concluded with the inauguration ceremony, in 1965, of the Jorge de Faria Room, today the Institute of Theater Studies/Jorge de Faria Room, and underlines the collection’s richness and importance, “considered by some the best in Portugal on its theme and unique in Europe”.

The launch of Jorge de Faria’s biography took place at Livraria Linha de Sombra – Cinemateca Portuguesa on 23rd September, with a presentation by the author, Isabel Vidal and by the playwright, researcher and theatre critic, Jorge Louraço Figueira.

The health and safety rules in force limited the maximum capacity to 50.