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Maria Aurora Couto
Maria Aurora Couto (22 August 1937 – 14 January 2022) was an Indian writer and educator best known for promoting literature and ideas in the English language within Goa and beyond. In addition to her books, she wrote for newspapers and magazine, and also taught English literature at Lady Shri Ram College, Delhi and Dhempe College of Panjim. She also helped start the DD Kosambi Festival of Ideas in 2008.
Couto was a recipient of the Padma Shri, India's fourth highest civilian award in 2010.
Couto was born in Salcette in South Goa on 22 August 1937 to António Caetano Francisco (Chico) de Figueiredo and Maria Quitéria Filomena Borges. Her parents were both natives of the Velhas Conquistas district of Salcette. Both her paternal and maternal origins were from the Roman Catholic Brahmin community of the erstwhile Portuguese Goa and Damaon.
She moved as a child to the neighbouring city of Dharwad, then in the Mysore state, and a centre of education and opportunity for Goans, with her parents and six siblings in an attempt to control her father's alcoholism. Following their father's abandonment of the family, the seven children were raised by their mother as a single parent.
Couto studied at St Joseph's High School and later studied English literature at Karnatak University. In a later interview, she would later recollect that her growing up days were centered around her identity as an Indian, as a Goan, and as a Catholic. The college at the time had students from all over the then Mysore state. Some of her classmates at university included playwright Girish Karnad and author Shashi Deshpande. She later completed her PhD in literature studying religious humanism in the works of François Mauriac.
Couto went on to teach English literature in colleges such as Lady Shri Ram College, Delhi and Dhempe College, Panaji and also contributed to periodicals in India and the United Kingdom.
Couto's writing career began with her 1988 book about English author and literary critic, Graham Greene's works, Graham Greene: On the Frontier, Politics and Religion in the Novels. She had met the writer earlier during his visit to Goa in 1963. Her 2004 book, Goa: A Daughter's Story, was "neither history nor biography" due to its non-factual nature, but her autobiography combined with a description of the lifestyle of the Roman Catholic Brahmin community in Goa. In 2014, Couto released her book Filomena's Journeys, which delves into the life of her mother, Filomena Borges, covering "Goa's dying Catholic elite" as it showed the shift of society and culture in Goa. In this third book she described her father's battles with alcoholism, life in the changing times, and growing up in multicultural India.
As the Chairperson of the DD Kosambi Centenary Committee in 2008, Couto helped initiate the DD Kosambi Festival of Ideas, a lecture series sponsored by Goa's Department of Culture. She was also actively involved with Goa University.
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Maria Aurora Couto
Maria Aurora Couto (22 August 1937 – 14 January 2022) was an Indian writer and educator best known for promoting literature and ideas in the English language within Goa and beyond. In addition to her books, she wrote for newspapers and magazine, and also taught English literature at Lady Shri Ram College, Delhi and Dhempe College of Panjim. She also helped start the DD Kosambi Festival of Ideas in 2008.
Couto was a recipient of the Padma Shri, India's fourth highest civilian award in 2010.
Couto was born in Salcette in South Goa on 22 August 1937 to António Caetano Francisco (Chico) de Figueiredo and Maria Quitéria Filomena Borges. Her parents were both natives of the Velhas Conquistas district of Salcette. Both her paternal and maternal origins were from the Roman Catholic Brahmin community of the erstwhile Portuguese Goa and Damaon.
She moved as a child to the neighbouring city of Dharwad, then in the Mysore state, and a centre of education and opportunity for Goans, with her parents and six siblings in an attempt to control her father's alcoholism. Following their father's abandonment of the family, the seven children were raised by their mother as a single parent.
Couto studied at St Joseph's High School and later studied English literature at Karnatak University. In a later interview, she would later recollect that her growing up days were centered around her identity as an Indian, as a Goan, and as a Catholic. The college at the time had students from all over the then Mysore state. Some of her classmates at university included playwright Girish Karnad and author Shashi Deshpande. She later completed her PhD in literature studying religious humanism in the works of François Mauriac.
Couto went on to teach English literature in colleges such as Lady Shri Ram College, Delhi and Dhempe College, Panaji and also contributed to periodicals in India and the United Kingdom.
Couto's writing career began with her 1988 book about English author and literary critic, Graham Greene's works, Graham Greene: On the Frontier, Politics and Religion in the Novels. She had met the writer earlier during his visit to Goa in 1963. Her 2004 book, Goa: A Daughter's Story, was "neither history nor biography" due to its non-factual nature, but her autobiography combined with a description of the lifestyle of the Roman Catholic Brahmin community in Goa. In 2014, Couto released her book Filomena's Journeys, which delves into the life of her mother, Filomena Borges, covering "Goa's dying Catholic elite" as it showed the shift of society and culture in Goa. In this third book she described her father's battles with alcoholism, life in the changing times, and growing up in multicultural India.
As the Chairperson of the DD Kosambi Centenary Committee in 2008, Couto helped initiate the DD Kosambi Festival of Ideas, a lecture series sponsored by Goa's Department of Culture. She was also actively involved with Goa University.