Maria Helena da Rocha Pereira

Under preparation (partially available)

Maria Helena da Rocha Pereira was born in Cedofeita, Porto, 3 September 1925, and also died in Porto, 10 April 2017. She was a prominent Portuguese scholar and researcher in Classical Studies (Greek and Latin culture).

She graduated in Classical Philology at the Faculty of Arts and Humanities at the University of Coimbra in 1947. A scholarship holder at the Institute of High Culture at the University of Oxford, she completed her PhD in Literature at the University of Coimbra in 1956, with the dissertation Concepções helénicas de felicidade no além: de Homero a Platão [Hellenic conceptions of happiness in the afterlife: from Homer to Plato].

Between 1948 and 1957 she was a teacher of Latin and later of ancient Greek at the Centre for Humanistic Studies at the University of Porto. In 1964 she became Full Professor at the Faculty of Arts and Humanities of the University of Coimbra with the chair of Greek Literature.

In 2009 he received a honoris causa doctoral degree from the University of Lisbon. In 2010 she was awarded the Literary Life prize by the Portuguese Writers Association.

BGUC received her library and papers, which consist of around 13,600 monographs (of which 50% are already available for consultation), periodical publications and other archival documents, not yet inventoried.