The Brazilian writer and historian Lélia Nunes has just been elected the first female President of the Santa Catarina Academy of Letters in Brazil.
A descendant from the Azores, Lélia Nunes will take office on August 24th in Florianópolis.
She is the first woman in the Academy’s 103 years to take up the critical post, and the writer reacted to our newspaper with “enormous satisfaction and pride,” adding this further distinction to her enormous resume in the field of Letters and Culture.
Lélia Nunes has published a vast amount of work on the traditions of the Azores, which she visits frequently, especially regarding the Divine Holy Spirit Festivities. This tradition still continues in Santa Catarina, carried on by Azorean couples.
Lélia Nunes was born in Tubarão and lives in Florianópolis, on the island of Santa Catarina. She is a sociologist with postgraduate degrees in Sociology and Law, a Master’s in Public Administration, and a retired Adjunct Professor at the Federal University of Santa Catarina.

She was Superintendent of the Franklin Cascaes Foundation (1997/2004), President of the Aníbal Nunes Pires Foundation (2004-2009), and Secretary General of the State Council for Culture (1999-2002).
She is a member of the Superior Council of the National Folklore Co- mission (holder of the SOUTH region), was on the Board of Casa dos Aço- res/SC, and was the National Coordinator/Brazil of RED Cultural Mercosur.
She is a member of the UNESCO/Merco- sul list of Experts on Intangible Patrimony; Emeritus member of the Historical and Geographical Institute of Santa Catarina. She has done a tremendous amount of research into the traditional popular culture of Santa Catarina, particularly in Azorean cultural scene since 1984.

She has published works such as Zum- blick, uma história de vida e de arte (1993); Entre Penas e Pincéis, org. (1998), O Italiano em Santa Catarina, co-author (2002), Caminhos do Divino, um olhar sobre o Espírito Santo em Santa Catarina (2007 and 2010, 2nd ed.), Na Esquina das Ilhas, (2011) and Pedra de Toque.
She recently curated the project “Viva Açores, to know is to live“, carried out in the state of Santa Catarina, in the south of Brazil, by Grupo ND, TV.
It was a private initiative to mark the 275th anniversary of the arrival of the first Azoreans in this Brazilian state.
In 2022 she was recognized with the Insignia Autónmica by the Autonomous Region of the Azores.

Professor Lélia Nunes serves on the advisory board of Bruma Publications-PBBI-Fresno State. We congratulate her efforts and her achievements.

This news story is from Diário dos Açores, Osvaldo Cabral, director.

Translated to English as a community outreach program from the Portuguese Beyond Borders Institute (PBBI) and the Modern and Classical Languages and Cultures Department (MCLL) as part of Bruma Publication and ADMA (Azores-Diaspora Medial Alliance)  at California State University, Fresno.

News article in Portuguese