Her father is enigmatic, her mother suicidal her friends rock musicians and drug addicts. A liberal police inspector, who is a widower with a daughter of his own, must sift through the life of the girl and discover why she was so brutally murdered. In 1941 Germany, an industrialist is approached by the SS high command in a none-too-friendly manner and is “persuaded” to go to Lisbon and oversee the smuggling of the same precious metal to the German war machine.Ĭut to 1999 Lisbon, where the daughter of a prominent lawyer has been found dead on a beach. World War II Portugal is neutral where business is concerned and large amounts of wolfram (used in the manufacture of tanks and aeroplanes) are being sold to Britain. “A small death in Lisbon” by Robert Wilson: The narrative of this book switches back and forth between 19. Whilst generally considered Eça de Queiróz’s masterpiece, The Maias (Os Maias) portrays the upper-middle-class and aristocratic Portuguese society within a theme of degeneration of a traditional family. His next novel Cousin Bazilio (O Primo Bazilio) was a biting satire on the romantic ideal of passion and its tragic consequences. Other translated books by Eça de Queiroz to consider are his first novel “The Sin of Padre Amaro” (O Crime do Padre Amaro), which describes the destructive effects of celibacy on a priest of weak character and the dangers of fanaticism in a provincial Portuguese town. During this time he wrote the novels for which he is best remembered, attempting to bring about social reform in Portugal through literature by exposing what he held to be the evils and the absurdities of the traditional conservative social order. He also served as Portuguese consul, first in Havana and then in England-in Newcastle upon Tyne (1874–79) and in Bristol (1879–88). He became committed to social reform and closely associated with a group of rebellious Portuguese intellectuals denouncing contemporary Portuguese literature as unoriginal and hypocritical. His works have been translated into many languages and whilst his real interest laid in literature, he also wrote short stories – ironic, fantastic, macabre and often gratuitously shocking. “ The City and the Mountains ” by Eça de Queiroz: Published after Eça de Queiroz’s death, (A Cidade e as Serras) is a very funny novel where satire is turned on the emptiness of city life and of modernity itself, whilst the bucolic second half bubbles with joie-de-vivre.Įça de Queiróz is considered a great 19th-century Portuguese novelist if not the greatest.

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