Growing up in Angola, one of the last European colonies in Africa, Mário left his home in 1928 to study in the Portuguese metropolis of Lisbon for what would become a lifelong exile. With companions from other Portuguese-held territories — Cape Verde, Mozambique, São Tomé and Guinea-Bissau — Mário coordinates the bases of the liberation movements of the Portuguese colonies from Paris where he is secretary at Présence Africaine magazine and an active member in the city’s intellectual scene. Internationalist solidarity and a deep love for his homeland leads Mário to devote himself completely to the liberation of the African colonies, traveling the globe on a mission for the success of the flowering liberation movements in Africa and worldwide..
Mário was the founding member of the Angolan liberation movement MPLA, its first president and main diplomat; the founder of CONCP (Conference of the Nationalist Organization of the Portuguese Colonies), a unique organization gathering all the liberation movements from the Portuguese colonies in a joint effort of independence from Portugal; a respected keynote speaker at several conferences on African culture, identity, and politics; a frequent contributor to several newspapers and cultural magazines and a regular contributor to UNESCO. A war strategist, prolific writer and thinker, Mário’s efforts were frank and direct in the fight for liberation until independence, and in the work for peace following the 1975 civil war in Angola..
The legacy of Mário Pinto de Andrade is evident in the rich archive of his socio-economic analysis of modern African affairs, his quest for a proper understanding of the origins of identity in Africa, his poetry, plays and screenplays, and in the memories of his family, friends and disciples, who tell of his great spirit and rigorous mind, and universally, of a deep admiration from all those who encountered him.