Pedro Mário Alles Tamen. Born in Lisbon on December 1st 1934. Graduated in Law from the University of Lisbon. Married, four children.
From 1958 until 1975, he supervised the ‘Moraes’ Publishing House in Lisbon. He taught at Secondary School and he was assistant-editor of FLAMA magazine. For some months he was in charge of the literary review of the weekly newspaper Expresso. He collaborated with several newspapers and magazines, in Portugal and Brazil. He is a member of the Portuguese Association of Writers and was the President of the Portuguese PEN Club (1987-1990). From 1975 until 2000 he was one of the Trustees of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon.
Some of his poems have been translated and published into French, English, Italian, German, Hungarian, Rumanian, Czech, Slovak, Bulgarian, Lettic, Swedish, Dutch and Spanish. His work appears in most anthologies of contemporary portuguese poetry. The volume of his complete works of Poetry until 1991, entitled Tábua das Matérias (Poesia 1956-1991), won the Critics Award and the Inapa Prize for Poetry.
He translated into Portuguese the Imitation of Christ (in collaboration), the Psalms (in part), The Epic of Gilgamesh, and works by authors such as Alejo Carpentier, André Breton, Camilo José Cela, Diderot, Edmond Jabès, Gabriel García Márquez, Georges Bataille, Georges Pérec, Gustave Flaubert, Jacques Prévert, J.-P. Sartre, Juan Carlos Onetti, Jules Verne, Julia Kristeva, Julien Green, Lautréamont, Manuel Scorza, Mérimée, Michel Foucault, Pascal Quignard, Sade, Vargas Llosa, Victor Segalen, Albert Cohen, Marcel Proust (À la Recherche du Temps Perdu), etc. In 1990, he won the Grand Prix for Translation. He was twice a finalist for the European Translation Prize.

POETRY WORKS: Poema para Todos os Dias (1956); O Sangue, a Água e o Vinho (1958); Primeiro Livro de Lapinova (1960); Poemas a Isto (1962); Daniel na Cova dos Leões (1970); Escrito de Memória (1973); Os Quarenta e Dois Sonetos (1973); Agora, Estar (1975); Poesia 1956-1978 (1978); Horácio e Coriáceo (1981; D. Dinis Prize); Princípio de Sol (1982); Antologia Provisória (1983); Allegria del Silenzio (Japadre, Rome, 1984); Dentro de Momentos (1984); As Palavras da Tribo (1985; a personal anthology, together with three other poets); Delfos, Opus 12 (1987); Delphes, Opus 12 & Autres Poèmes (Cahiers de Royaumont, Royaumont, 1990); Tábua das Matérias, Poesia 1956-1991 (1991; Critics Award and Inapa Prize for Poetry); Caracóis (1993; together with the painter Júlio Pomar); Depois de Ver (1995); Vér Víz Bor (Budapest, 1997); Guião de Caronte (1997; «Nicola» Prize for Poetry); Maître ès-sanglots (Le Taillis-Pré, Châtelineau, 1998); ЛИРНКА [Lyrics] (Karina M, Sofia,1999); Escrita Redita (1999; a CD anthology, poems read by Luís Lucas); Memória Indescritível (2000; Bordalo Prize of the Press and PEN-Club Prize); Honey and Poison: Selected Poems (Carcanet, Manchester, 2001); Retábulo das Matérias, Poesia 1956-2001 (2001); Caronte y Memoria (Madrid, 2002); Caronte e Memória (São Paulo, 2004); Xарон и Паметта (Adrassea, Sofia, 2005); Analogia e Dedos (2006; Luís Miguel Nava and Inês de Castro Prize).