A bit of history
In the Middle Ages, Portuguese literary production appeared with Galician-Portuguese gestural songs and lyrical poems already strongly marked by a certain languor and nostalgia. In the 16th century, Gil Vincente (1465-1537), the Portuguese Shakespeare, marked the history of European theatre. We must remember his play La Barque de l'Enfer (The Boat of Hell ), which is a work that cannot be ignored in Portugal. Luis de Camões (1525-1580), whose Lusiades retrace the epic of the Discoveries, and who founded modern Portuguese literature with his major work. The 17th century was dominated by Baroque religious literature, with, above all, the very eloquent sermons of the Jesuit priest Antonio Viera, a great humanist militant for the cause of Brazil's indigenous people and against the Inquisition.
Contemporary Literature
At the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century, Romanticism reached Portugal and found many followers among the most brilliant literary figures of the time: Viscount Almeida Garrett (1799-1854), for example, who transformed the hero of the Lusiades into a romantic hero in his poem Camões. Alexandre Herculano (1810-1877), a great national poet whose name now adorns many streets and squares throughout the country, greatly influenced the Romantic movement. It is possible to read in French Légendes et récits du Portugal and Eurico.
The second half of the literary 19th century was marked by the acidic social chronicles of Eça de Queiroz (1845-1900) and Camilo Castelo Branco (1825-1890), whose novels were strongly inspired by the realism of Balzac. The former wrote, for example, A Portuguese Family(Os Maias for the Portuguese title), a sort of naturalist fresco in the style of Zola! From the latter, one must read Love of Perdition (1862) which is considered by some as the greatest love novel of Portugal. The author wrote this story of a forbidden love while he was in prison because of his relationship with a married woman. Of medieval tradition, lyric poetry became king again at the beginning of the 20th century with Antero de Quental and Eugenio de Castro. But above all, this century will see the emergence of the three greats of contemporary Portuguese literature:
Fernando Pessoa (1888-1935), considered by some literary scholars around the world to be the most important writer of the 20th century, and his goggled and hatted figure will forever haunt the imagination of Lisbon. The principle of his literature is of singular genius: he relates the thoughts of many people who gravitate towards a self-referential, hermetic universe, into which one immerses oneself and immediately drowns. Some of these people even claim to know "a certain Fernando Pessoa". During his lifetime, literary critics believed that his literary creation was closely related to those of some of his friends: the melancholic Bernardo Soares, the magnificent Alberto Caiero, the conservative Richardo Reis, the lyrical Alvaro de Campos, all of whom were very fashionable at the time. It was only after his death, in 1935, that it was realized that these "friends" were imaginary characters and that all the poems, short stories, odes and fragments published at that time were invented by Pessoa himself.
Antonio Tabucchi (1943-2012), the Italian writer who was so seduced by Lisbon and Portugal that he decided to write in Portuguese! One of his best novels, Pereira prétend (Sostiene Pereira), describes the awakening of a journalist during the greatest hours of the new state. The theme is interesting, but one will be especially seduced by the extraordinary painting of Lisbon. A book to keep for the days of saudade.
José Saramago (1922-2010), well known and valued abroad. The only Portuguese Nobel Prize in Literature in 1998 distinguished himself by his fantastic and pessimistic novels in the best tradition of Portuguese literature. A member of the Communist Party since 1969, he claims to be an atheist and has not failed to provoke controversy in the very Catholic Portugal, especially with his Gospel according to Jesus Christ.
In Algarve
Very few writers from the Algarve have crossed the borders. However, a few have left their mark on the literary history of their country. António Aleixo (1899-1949) is one of them. He is considered one of the main poets of the Algarve. His texts, full of irony at the beginning of the 20th century, bring a new criticism of society. A statue pays tribute to him in Loulé, near the Calcinha bar that he used to frequent.
Another beautiful writer from Loulé is Casimiro Cavaco Correia de Brito (born in 1938). Initially a journalist, then an essayist, he finally devoted himself to poetry, an art to which he has devoted some twenty works. His last novel, 69 love poems, has been the subject of much discussion. His latest novel, 69 love poems, has been widely read and is also known as Loving All Life (2015).The Future of Portuguese Literature
Let's start with Manuel de Freitas and his Game Over, a sort of collection of urban hymns in which the author captures the daily life and delivers a bitter and disillusioned chronicle. It is also very important to discover António Lobo Antunes (born in 1942). This psychiatrist is also a recognized author and was awarded the Camões Prize in 2007, the country's literary grand prize. His writing aims to break the codes and rules of the traditional plot: for example, it involves several narrators who approach different points of view for the same situation. Discover for example Traité des passions de l'âme (1990), Mémoire d'éléphant (1998) or Mon nom est légion (2007)... Read also Margarida Rebelo Pinto (born in 1965), author and writer for the Portuguese and international press (like Elle or Marie-Claire). Her first novel, The Daughters of Estoril, was published in 1999 and made her famous. Finally, let us mention the author Agustina Bessa-Luís (1922-2019), a true icon of literature in Portugal. Seven films by Manoel de Oliveira were born from her! Among her works are The Sibyl (1984), The Comfortable Despair of Women (1994) and The Principle of Uncertainty (2002).
