Maria Aurora Couto

Maria Aurora Couto Biography

Maria Aurora Couto is an Indian writer from Goa. She is also known as an educationalist. She is the author of the acclaimed novel, Goa: A Daughter's Story. The book earned her popularity as a writer and many recognitions too. Graham Greene: On the Frontier, Politics and Religion in the Novels (1986), Ethnography of Goa, Daman and Diu (2008) – a translation work and Filomena's Journeys: Portrait of a marriage, a family and a culture (2013) are her other published works. For her overall contributions towards the field of education and literature, Government of India honoured him with the fourth highest civilian honour - Padma Shri in 2010. She is also a recipient of Goa Sahitya Akademi award.

Maria Aurora Couto was born into a Goan Catholic community in Goa. She was brought up in a Christian background. After studies she taught many years at Delhi, and worked in UK too. During this time she contributed many Indian and UK journals in the form of columns. She has been writing books for the past 25 years or so.

She is best known for her novel, Goa: A Daughter's Story. The book is regarded as a landmark work which records the social life of Goa and a series of events just before and after the end of the longest spell of colonialism. It’s a unique blend of biography, memoir and social history. Her work “Filomena’s Journeys” also draws experiences from her personal life and deals about her mother Filomena Borges’ life trajectory including the death of her parents at a very young age before she reached 8. Recently Maria was accused of hypocrisy over only speaking about communal issues.

Published: February 04, 2019

Updated: February 04, 2019