Agustina Bessa-Luís began writing at a time when many women writers were unsuccessfully fighting for emancipation. Bessa-Luís, however, was able to publish her work regularly, standing out as a prolific writer of Portuguese literature. Her novels are characterized by detailed descriptions and a concern for time and its passage. Her characters are generally presented as being in conflict with the indifference of a technologically oriented society. Bessa-Luís, especially in her novels, attempts to solve the age-old conflict between the regional and the universal as she reflects on Portuguese reality and its relation to the world. Her work, closely connected to Portuguese culture and at the same time extremely universal, has earned her a place not only as an important woman writer but also as a prominent Portuguese author.

As a member of the third phase of Portuguese modernism, Bessa-Luís escapes...