Portuguese politicians split their time between the south of the country and their homelands to enjoy their holidays, accompanied by literary choices ranging from Nobel Prize winners to technical books such as Greek and Latin grammar.

In the middle of August and with parliament in recess, Portuguese politicians go on holiday and prefer national destinations. The south of the country is a preferred destination, but there are also those who choose to stay at home.

The President of the Republic will leave in mid-August for the Algarve town of Monte Gordo, in the municipality of Vila Real de Santo António, but, when asked by Lusa, he had not yet chosen the reading material that will accompany him on this holiday.

The President of the Assembly of the Republic, José Pedro Aguiar-Branco, said he will spend his holidays in the Algarve region, without specifying where. He has already chosen to read three works by international authors: "Submission", by Michel Houellebecq, Alfaguara; "The Next 100 Years", by George Friedman, by D. Quixote; and "Trilogy - Vigil. Olav's Dreams. Fatigue", by 2023 Nobel Prize winner for Literature Jon Fosse, by Cavalo de Ferro.

The secretary-general of the PS will go on holiday at the end of this week and "will pass through the Algarve", said his press office, which did not say whether Pedro Nuno Santos will bring any reading material with him.

The president of Chega will be in the Algarve. André Ventura will be on holiday between 9 and 18 August, but he also did not want to say whether he will dedicate himself to reading during his break from political work.

The president of the Liberal Initiative, Rui Rocha, is one of the party leaders who prefers to take a break in the city where he grew up. Rocha was born in Angola, but years later his family ended up settling in Braga - the city where the liberal will spend his holidays. Rui Rocha will bring the book "The End of the Soviet Man", by the 2015 Nobel Prize winner for Literature, the Belarusian Svetlana Aleksiévitch, published in Portugal by Porto Editora. He also told Lusa that he wants to update his reading of the Belgian comic book series Blake & Mortimer, by Edgar P. Jacobs.

The spokesperson for the Livre Rui Tavares will also be far from the big tourist centres, going to his "ancestral village", the Ribatejo village of Arrifana. During his holidays he will continue reading manuals and basic grammars of Greek and Latin, a choice he justifies because he "didn't learn Greek and Latin at the right time". The spokesperson for Livre promises to "keep trying to improve" in these two languages, considering that it is a good way to enjoy his free time and that "that is what summer holidays are for".

The coordinator of Bloco de Esquerda, Mariana Mortágua, will take advantage of the holidays to be with her family, spending, as usual, a few days in Alentejo - the region where she was born. With her, she will be taking the book "Pedra e Sombra" by the Turkish novelist Burhan Sönmez, published by Livros do Brasil.

Paulo Raimundo, secretary-general of the PCP, will go to the Alentejo coast and chose the book "Mil-homens", by Poética Edições, by the Portuguese author - and head of the CDU list for the Viseu constituency in the last legislative elections - Alexandre Hoffman Castela.

Nuno Melo, leader of the CDS and Minister of Defence, explained that the "pace of governance and the problems inherited in the Ministry of National Defence will hardly allow for holidays in the classic sense of the term", but that "if he has a few days" he will go north, to Moledo, in Minho, where he has spent his holidays since childhood. For this holiday, the Minister of Defence chose the book "1821, o Regresso do Rei", by Editorial Planeta, written by Armando Seixas Ferreira, who is currently the press officer for that ministry.

The leader of PAN, Inês Sousa Real, will spend her holidays on the Costa Vicentina and will have the classic "To Kill a Mockingbird", by Harper Lee, Relógio d´Água, and the work by Margaret Atwood recently adapted into a television series, "The Handmaids Tale", by Bertrand Editora.

Prime Minister Luís Montenegro refused to respond to a request made by the Lusa news agency to the main figures in national politics about his holidays.