Raul Brandão's literary output was vast and covered many genres, including drama, short stories, novels, diaries, and journalism. Several generations of writers recognize Brandão's importance in the development of the new Portuguese novel. Among them, authors such as Vergílio Ferreira, Agustina Bessa-Luís, and the poet Herberto Helder have talked about his influence on their work. Brandão's work may be divided into two opposing tendencies. On the one hand, there is a negative and pessimistic side, grounded in a metaphysical questioning about the origins of human misery, the incomprehensibility of death, and the problem of defining God. On the other, however, there is the author who writes of hope, affirming the beauty of life and the magnitude of nature. The depiction of the inherent contradictions of life and the frustrated attempts to comprehend it appear in a fragmented and...