Because of his anti-colonial activities, he was jailed multiple times, causing the family to move to Angola, Portugal, Cape Verde, and eventually in 1962 to orchestrate an escape on Moroccan passports to Léopoldville, now in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
She has received numerous honors for her dedication to Angola's independence and for her writing, including Cape Verde's highest honour, the Order of Amílcar Cabral in 2023, and the National Prize for Culture and Arts from the Union of Angolan Writers in 2011.
[2] Da Silva became one of his close friends and began to explore the issues of racial discrimination and the political problems it created for Africans.
[2][9] He started working as a pediatrics specialist at Hospital de Dona Estefânia and took a course on tropical medicine while Neto prepared for the birth of their first child, Mário Jorge, at the end of 1959.
[2][10] In July 1960, he was arrested by Polícia Internacional e de Defesa do Estado (International and State Defense Police, PIDE) for his political activism.
Irene Alexandra was born in July 1961 and in September, Neto and the children joined Agostinho on Santo Antão, Cape Verde, where he was working as a health inspector.
[2] Securing permission to work at the Hospital de Santa Marta, Agostinho orchestrated an escape plan to get his family to Léopoldville, now in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
She made crafts that could be sold to raise money to help children and organized activities with the University of Dar es Salaam to bring awareness to their programs.
One was about Hoji-ya-Henda, a guerrilla fighter; another about their escape from Portugal; one about the northern conflict in which all but 20 of the 200 member detachment were killed; and another about the donkeys which were used to transport goods.
[15] The Portuguese coup d'état in April 1974, suspended Portugal's military involvement in Angola,[21] and in early 1975, the family returned to Luanda.
[26] Agostinho countered that the MPLA represented racial collaboration uniting Black, White, and Mestizo people who fought together for Angola, whereas UNITA was backed by the South African Apartheid regime.
Scholars José Luís Pires Laranjeira [pt] and Júlia Parreira Zuza Andrade, who reviewed this literary period in Angola stated that Neto's work E nas florestas os bichos falaram (In the Forest the Animals Spoke) made analogies between the destruction of nature by man and the destruction of the nation by colonialism.
A renúncia impossível: poemas inéditos (The Impossible Renunciation: Unpublished Poems) was released by the Instituto Nacional do Livro e do Disco (The National Institute of Books and Records, INALD) in 1982.
[31] In 1987, Neto; Jacqueline Jackson,[32] US peace activist and writer;[33] Miriam Makeba,[32] South African musician and civil rights activist;[34] Sally Mugabe, First Lady of Zimbabwe; Marcela Pérez de Cuéllar,[32] wife of the Peruvian Secretary-General of the United Nations;[35] and Dabanga dos Santos,[32] a Mozambican attaché to the United Nations,[36] formed a foundation called the Children's Fund for Southern Africa (CHISA).
The organization was established to address problems, such as lack of education, food, health care, shelter, and adequate clothing for mothers and children in Southern Africa, which mainly stemmed from on-going conflicts.
Reviewer John Bella stated that the works illustrate the difficulties encountered during the war and help youth understand the cost of freedom.
[50] Neto won the National Prize for Culture and Arts from the Uniao dos Escritores Angolanos (Union of Angolan Writers) for her body of work in 2011.
[52] In 2017, she became one of the three women, the other two being Irene Guerra Marques and Fátima Viegas, who have been inducted into the Academia Angolana de Letras (Angolan Academy of Letters).
[54] She received the Order of Amílcar Cabral in the second degree, Cape Verde's highest national honor, in July 2023 for her contributions and commitment to the liberation struggles in and development of Africa.