Vergílio Ferreira, who actively published from 1939 until his death in 1996, is considered one of the greatest Portuguese writers of the twentieth century. His output includes more than twenty works of fiction (mostly novels but also some collections of short stories), more than a dozen works of nonfiction (essays on philosophy as well as on literary and cultural criticism), and approximately ten volumes of diaries. Several of his novels have been awarded major literary prizes, and late in his life the importance of Ferreira's literary career was recognized through various prestigious international awards such as the Femina Prize in France (1990), the Europália Prize (1991), and the Camões Prize (1992), the highest literary honor in Portugal.

Ferreira is also regarded as one of the most highly philosophical modern writers in the Portuguese language, alongside Fernando Pessoa, João Guimarães Rosa, Clarice Lispector, and...