Articles
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Eça de Queirós: The Diplomat
<p>On August 16, 1900, in a Parisian residence, José Maria Eça de Queirós expired, leaving unfinished a literary revolution that would forever transform Portuguese letters. He was 54 years old …
Ramalho Ortigão: A Defender of Porto's Heritage
Between medieval Porto and the cosmopolitan Porto of the late 19th century unfolded a tension that Ramalho Ortigão witnessed with a simultaneously admiring and critical gaze: the progressive destruction of …
Ramalho Ortigão: Porto as Memory and Art
<p>As we traverse the vast gallery of paintings that Ramalho Ortigão created of nineteenth-century Porto, one conclusion imposes itself: the descriptions of his native city gained in density and beauty …
Ramalho Ortigão: Portraits of Porto Society
<p>Porto society in the second half of the nineteenth century presented itself to Ramalho Ortigão's eyes as a deeply contradictory social body. On one side, the commercial population, affluent; on …
Journey to Portugal
Some travel books tell you where to go. José Saramago's "Viagem a Portugal" tells you how to see. Commissioned in the late 1970s to mark a publisher's milestone, Saramago spent …
Babel Rises in Porto: World Literary Giants Converge for Groundbreaking Festival
Portugal's second city is about to become the epicenter of global literary culture. Next June, Porto will host an unprecedented week-long celebration of literature, philosophy, and ideas that promises to …
The Rebellious Voice of Portuguese Poetry
<p>On a December afternoon in 1895, a child was born in Vila Viçosa who would grow to become one of the most singular voices in Portuguese literature. Baptized as Flor …
Herculano and Portuguese History
<p>When Alexandre Herculano's mortal remains were solemnly transferred to the Jerónimos Monastery in 1888, eleven years after his death, Portugal was bestowing upon a son of Lisbon's petty bourgeoisie an …
Ramalho Ortigão: the writer of Porto
<p>José Duarte Ramalho Ortigão was born in Porto on 24 November 1836, in a house on Rua de Germalde, in Lapa, and would remain there until 1868, when at thirty-two …