Eça de Queirós, José Maria

Born Nov. 25, 1845, in Póvoa de Varzim; died Aug. 16, 1900, in Paris. Portuguese writer.

Eça de Queirós graduated from the law faculty of the University of Coimbra in 1866. He was in the diplomatic service from 1872 to 1900. His articles and stories, which were published in 1866–67 and later released in the collection Barbaric Prose (1905), are in the romantic style. By the early 1870’s, however, Eça de Queirós had turned toward critical realism, depicting everyday life in contemporary Portugal. He became the greatest representative of the realist Coimbra school.

In the novel The Sin of Father Amaro (1875; rev. ed., 1880; Russian translation, 1935), Eça de Queirós assailed the hypocrisy, bigotry, and corruption of the provincial clergy and criticized bourgeois liberalism. His novel Cousin Basilio (1878; Russian translation, 1911) depicts the mores of Lisbon’s petite bourgeoisie, officialdom, and intelligentsia. The novel The Relic (1887; Russian translations, 1922, 1963), which critically examines the sources of Christian dogma, contains elements of the fantastic. The Illustrious House of Ramires (1897; Russian translation, 1965), a novel about the decline of the Portuguese aristocracy, portrays life in Lisbon and the provinces. In his last novel, The City and the Mountains (published 1901; Russian translation, 1917), and in his short stories, social critique is somewhat toned down.

Eça de Queirós had a significant influence on the development of the 20th-century Portuguese and Brazilian novel.