Helena Buescu is currently Professor Emerita of Comparative Literature at the University of Lisbon. She has been awarded an Honoris Causa by the University of Bucharest, and she is a lifelong member of St. John's College, Cambridge University. She also belongs to Academia das Ciências de Lisboa, as well as Academia Europaea. She has been Visiting Professor and Researcher in many prestigious Universities, in Europe, United States, Brazil, and China, and has been plenary and guest speaker in many international conferences as well as in many schools and seminars . She has authored 9 books (single author), and has co-authored several others, published nationally and internationally. Author of more than 200 chapters of books and papers, in internationally acclaimed publishers as Harvard UP, Palgrave, Cambridge UP, Brill, Rodopi, or Routledge. In Portugal, her work has been published in well-known houses such as Imprensa Nacional, Relógio d'Água, Tinta-da-China, Porto Editora, or Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian. She was awarded some of the most important literary prizes in Portugal. She has also served in assessment committees in European institutions, such as European Science Foundation, Italian Science Foundation, Danish Science Foundation, or Norwegian Science Foundation. She is currently finishing a book on "Imperfect inheritances", on the complex relations between modernity and its pasts.