French singer and writer Linda de Suza, who was naturalized in Portugal, died today at the age of 74 in Gisors, a municipality in Normandy. De Suza, stage name of Teolinda Joaquina de Sousa Lança, was born in 1948 in Beringel, Portugal. In 1969 he secretly left his homeland for France: in 1973 he settled in Paris.
What was hailed as the queen of the ’80s, the Elysée recalls in a note, began its existence away from the show’s gold medals, in a rural region of Portugal by Salazar, within a family of eight children where resources were scarce. She left school at eleven to work as a cleaner and then as a factory worker. At 24, fleeing the suffocating climate of her family, who resented having had a child without being married, she preferred to go to Paris with her son without speaking a word of French . In a few months, de Suza learned the language thanks to the photo novels of Nous-Deux magazine.
At Louisette, the flea market in Saint-Ouen, where she worked as a waitress, she hummed Dalida tunes between services. His timbre, notes the Elysium, was soon noticed and success followed. “The secret of its meteoric rise was without a doubt – emphasizes the Elysee – its authenticity. From his intimate experience of uprooting, he drew heart-touching melodies, colored with the accents of that traditional fado, from which he borrowed his poignant nostalgia”. At the crossroads of two cultures, two languages, translating their greatest French achievements into Portuguese , she reiterates: “She established herself as an icon of the intersecting destinies of our two peoples and promoted Portugal when it joined the European Union in 1986.” The President of the Republic Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte “salute this talented singer, who builds bridges between the country where she began her life and the country where she ended it, in this Normandy that is so dear to her”, and offer their condolences to the family.