Pedro Rosa Mendes

Journalist & Writer
born 1968, Portugal

Reports of violence are often hard to digest. However, Pedro Rosa Mendes‘ war reportage stands out as lyrical diamonds in this monotonous litany, shaped under the pressure of armed conflicts, hunger, disasters, and hopelessness. Tirelessly, he seeks words for the unspeakable horror in places where language has been lost—a horror that echoes long in those who can still feel. How can the past be healed when the present lies in darkness? In his reports and books, Mendes gives voice to the people he meets, approaching an unspeakable reality through their biographies.

Pedro Rosa Mendes studied law at the University of Coimbra and began writing his first articles during his studies. As a correspondent for the Portuguese daily newspaper Público, he regularly reported from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Zimbabwe, Angola, and Afghanistan. He also worked for several years in East Timor for the Portuguese news agency Lusa. His first book, „Baia dos Tigres“ (Bay of Tigers), was published in 1999. In this book, he describes his hitchhiking journey across Angola, a country torn apart by civil war. He masterfully intertwines this adventure with the colonial history of his homeland, creating a literary travel narrative in the tradition of Polish reportage legend Ryszard Kapuściński. He has remained true to this narrative style to this day.