by Lídia Jorge

Lídia Jorge was born in 1946, in the Algarve, a region of Portugal that would provide the setting for her two first novels. After graduating from the University of Lisbon, Jorge spent two intervals in Africa, first in Angola in 1969- 70 and then in Mozambique in 1972-74. Her literary career started auspiciously in 1980 with the publication of her first novel, the highly acclaimed O Dia dos Prodígios (The Day of Wonders). To date, her body of works consists of ten titles, including a collection of short stories and a play about the early-twentieth-century Republican feminist Adelaide Cabete, A Maçon, (1977; The Free Mason). Her novels, some of which adopt a collective point of view, some of which use a more intimate narrative voice, present a complex, multifaceted picture of contemporary Portugal, one that conveys variations between urban and rural...