Miguel Esteves Cardoso

On 13 February 2009 he welcomed his first grandchild, António Cardoso Coutinho, born in Lisbon, a natural son of his daughter Tristana by Bruno Coutinho.

He continued to write essays for O Independente (which published its last number in September 2006) and Diário de Notícias. Between 1999 and 2002, he wrote in his blog named Pastilhas. In January 2006 he returned to the weekly paper Expresso and in November 2006 published his most recent collection, A Minha Andorinha.

In 1997 he married for the second time, to Maria João Pinheiro, a former model and weather presenter.

Cardoso was born in a middle class family in Lisbon. His father, Joaquim Carlos Esteves Cardoso (1920 – 4 July 1994), was Portuguese and his mother (m. 1954), Hazel Diana Smith, was English. He had a good education and the advantage of a bilingual and bicultural upbringing, helping him to develop an outsider's detachment from the culture of his birth country. In 1979, he graduated from Manchester University in political studies and four years later, in 1983, he received his doctorate in Political Philosophy. While there he made contact with some of the new wave bands of Factory Records like Joy Division and New Order.

Esteves Cardoso began his career as a journalist when he started contributing a column to the weekly paper Expresso, later collected and published in four volumes, all of which sold over 100,000 copies and are still in print. In 1988, with Paulo Portas, he founded the very successful and innovative weekly paper O Independente but he left the board in 1991 to dedicate his time to the magazine K, financed by Valentim de Carvalho, SOCI and later also by Carlos Barbosa. Though highly regarded for its writing, design, and photography, it only lasted two years, attributed by Cardoso to irresponsibility and an excess of fun.

He married for the first time on 21 January 1981 and shortly after became the father of twin girls, socialites Sara and Tristana Esteves Cardoso, born in Lisbon. One year later he returned to Portugal, where he worked as an assisting investigator for the Social Studies Institute on the Lisbon University. He later became a supporting teacher of political sociology for ISCTE and then returned to Manchester University to work on his post-doctorate in Political Philosophy oriented by Derek Parfit and Joseph Raz.

Miguel Vicente Esteves Cardoso (born 25 July 1955) is a Portuguese writer, translator, critic and journalist. He is a well-known monarchist.