Eça de Queiroz

Eça de Queiroz [1845-1900] was considered by V. S. Pritchett as a writer who must rank with Proust as one of the greatest of European novelists. For Zola he was ‘far greater than my own dear master, Flaubert’. Had Queiroz written in a language other than his native Portuguese he would undoubtedly have been, and be, much more famous. His novels illuminate nineteenth-century Portuguese society as those of Dickens reveal Victorian England. As well as being a novelist, the author of ‘The Crime of Father Amaro’, ‘Cousin Basílio’ and ‘The Maias’ was a distinguished diplomat and journalist, who lived in Cuba, England and France in the course of his consular duties. Although he struggled to adapt to life in Newcastle, his first UK posting, he spent a decade in the country in various locations and wrote arresting articles and reports on contemporary social and political problems. Some literary studies have been published, but this is the first readable, yet scholarly, biography available in English. Maria Filomena Mónica lectures at the Institute of Social Sciences of the University of Lisbon