Eça de Queirós | |
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| Born | José Maria de Eça de Queirós (1845-11-25)25 November 1845 Póvoa de Varzim, Portugal |
| Died | 16 August 1900(1900-08-16) (aged 54) Neuilly-sur-Seine, France |
| Occupation | Novelist, consul |
| Nationality | Portuguese |
| Literary movement | Realism,Romanticism |
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José Maria de Eça de Queiroz[1] orQueirós (European Portuguese:[ˈɛsɐðɨkɐjˈɾɔʃ]; 25 November 1845 – 16 August 1900) is generally considered to have been the greatest Portuguese writer in therealist style.[2]Zola considered him to be far greater thanFlaubert.[3] In the LondonObserver,Jonathan Keates ranked him alongsideDickens,Balzac andTolstoy.[4]
Eça de Queiroz was born inPóvoa de Varzim, Portugal, in 1845. An illegitimate child, he was officially recorded as the son of José Maria de Almeida Teixeira de Queiroz and Carolina Augusta Pereira d'Eça. His unmarried mother left home so that her son could be born away from social scandal. Although his parents married when he was four years old, he lived with his paternal grandparents until he was ten.[5]
At age 16, he went toCoimbra to studylaw at theUniversity of Coimbra; there he met the poetAntero de Quental. Eça's first work was a series of prose poems, published in theGazeta de Portugal magazine, which eventually appeared in book form in a posthumous collection edited byBatalha Reis entitledProsas Bárbaras ("Barbarous texts"). He worked as a journalist atÉvora, then returned to Lisbon and, with his former school friendRamalho Ortigão and others, created theCorrespondence of the fictional adventurerFradique Mendes. This amusing work was first published in 1900.[citation needed]
In 1869 and 1870, Eça de Queiroz travelled to Egypt and watched the opening of theSuez Canal, which inspired several of his works, most notablyO Mistério da Estrada de Sintra ("The Mystery of the Sintra Road", 1870), written in collaboration with Ramalho Ortigão, in which Fradique Mendes appears.A Relíquia ("The Relic") was also written at this period but was published only in 1887. The work was strongly influenced byMemorie di Giuda ("Memoirs of Judas") byFerdinando Petruccelli della Gattina, such as to lead some scholars to accuse the Portuguese writer of plagiarism.[6]
When he was later dispatched toLeiria to work as a municipal administrator, Eça de Queiroz wrote his first realist novel,O Crime do Padre Amaro ("The Crime of Father Amaro"), which is set in the city and first appeared in 1875.[citation needed]
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Eça then worked in the Portuguese consular service and after two years' service at Havana was stationed, from late 1874 until April 1879, at 53 Grey Street,Newcastle upon Tyne, where there is a memorial plaque in his honour.[7] His diplomatic duties included the dispatch of detailed reports to the Portuguese foreign office concerning the unrest in theNorthumberland andDurham coalfields – in which, as he points out, the miners earned twice as much as those in South Wales, along with free housing and a weekly supply of coal. The Newcastle years were among the most productive of his literary career. He published the second version ofO Crime de Padre Amaro in 1876 and another celebrated novel,O Primo Basílio ("Cousin Bazilio") in 1878, as well as working on a number of other projects. These included the first of his "Cartas de Londres" ("Letters from London") which were printed in the Lisbon daily newspaperDiário de Notícias and afterwards appeared in book form asCartas de Inglaterra.
As early as 1878 he had at least given a name to his masterpieceOs Maias ("The Maias"), though this was largely written while he was Portuguese consul inBristol from 1879 to 1888. It was published the year he left Bristol to become the Portuguese consul-general in Paris.[5] In February 1886, he married Maria Emília de Castro in Lisbon. She joined him at his residence in 38 Stoke Hill,Stoke Bishop, where there is also a memorial plaque. However, Maria Emília was not happy there; so they decided to rent a house inNotting Hill,London. As his earlier letters indicate that he had already made frequent visits to London, this was probably a satisfactory arrangement for both.[5] Thereafter Eça commuted between London and Bristol, where his house in Stoke Bishop was equidistant between the outer docks atAvonmouth and inner docks in Bristol.
Eça, a cosmopolitan widely read in English literature, was not enamoured of English society, but he was fascinated by its oddity. InBristol he wrote: "Everything about this society is disagreeable to me – from its limited way of thinking to its indecent manner of cooking vegetables." As often happens when a writer is unhappy, the weather is endlessly bad. Nevertheless, he was rarely bored and was content to stay in England for some fifteen years. "I detest England, but this does not stop me from declaring that as a thinking nation, she is probably the foremost." It may be said that England acted as a constant stimulus and a corrective to Eça's traditionally Portuguese Francophilia.
Eça's politics were liberal, although he was also influenced by the ideas ofPierre-Joseph Proudhon.[8] In 1898, upon growing more pessimistic about the future of Portugal and Europe, he described himself as a "vague, saddened anarchist". Together with Ortigão and others he had formed an informal group of intellectuals known asLife's Vanquished.[9]
He had actively sought the position of Portuguese consul-general inParis and, having obtained it in 1888, remained in post for the rest of his life. He lived atNeuilly-sur-Seine and continued to write journalism (Ecos de Paris, "Echoes from Paris") as well as literary criticism. He died in 1900 of eithertuberculosis or, according to numerous contemporary physicians,Crohn's disease.[10] His sonAntónio Eça de Queiroz would hold government office underAntónio de Oliveira Salazar. He was first buried in a family vault inAlto de São João Cemetery and later exhumed and moved to a grave in Santa Cruz do Douro Cemetery, inBaião Municipality, Portugal. His remains were transferred to theChurch of Santa Engrácia (the National Pantheon) in January 2025.[11]
Posthumous works
The works of Eça have been translated into about 20 languages, including English. Since 2002 English versions of eight of his novels and two volumes of novellas and short stories, translated byMargaret Jull Costa, have been published in the UK byDedalus Books.
You can check out the several Cinema and TV adaptations of Eça's works at thehttps://www.imdb.com/find/?q=o%20primo%20bas%C3%ADlio%20&ref_=nv_sr_sm
The first adaptation of an Eça de Queirós Novel is probablyO Primo Basílio, which was adapted five timeshttps://www.imdb.com/find/?q=o%20primo%20bas%C3%ADlio%20&ref_=nv_sr_sm for Cinema and Television
Os Maias was adapted three Times. The First in 1979 by RTPRádio e Televisão de Portugal as a 3 episode TV Series. The second in 2001 byRede Globo as a series, available through Globo's Streaming ServiceGloboplay.[12] And the third, again by RTPRádio e Televisão de Portugal in 2015 as a 4 episode TV Series (that has also a condensed theatrical movie version). This series is available on RTPs streaming serviceRTP Play.[13]
There have been two film versions ofO Crime do Padre Amaro,a Mexican one in 2002 anda Portuguese version in 2005 which was edited out of aSIC television series,[14][15][16] released shortly after the film (the film was by then the most seen Portuguese movie ever, though very badly received by critics, but the TV series, maybe due to being a slightly longer version of the same thing seen by a big share of Portuguese population,flopped and was rather ignored by audiences and critics). Both these adaptations were modernised versions of the novel. In 2023, it was, again, adapted into a 6 episode TV series[17] for RTPRádio e Televisão de Portugal, now faithfully set in 1860. Amaro is played byJosé Condessa, star ofNetflix international HitTurn of the Tide (TV series)
Eça's works have been also adapted on Brazilian television. In 1988Rede Globo producedO Primo Basílio in 35 episodes.[18] Later, in 2007, a movie adaptation of the same novel was made by directorDaniel Filho.[19] In 2001 Rede Globo produced an acclaimed adaptation ofOs Maias as a television series in 40 episodes.
A movie adaptation ofO Mistério da Estrada de Sintra was produced in 2007.[20] The director had shortly before directed a series inspired in awhodunit involving the descendants of the original novel's characters (Nome de Código Sintra, Code Name Sintra), and some of the historical flashback scenes (reporting to the book's events) of the series were used in the new movie. The movie was more centered on Eça's and Ramalho Ortigão's writing and publishing of the original serial and the controversy it created and less around the book's plot itself.
In September 2014, film directorJoão Botelho released the filmOs Maias based on the novel with the same nameOs Maias.[21] The film cost a million and a half euros,[22] having €600,000 from theInstituto do Cinema e Audiovisual (ICA), €170,000 fromCâmara Municipal de Lisboa, €120,000 fromAgência Nacional do Cinema (Ancine, the Brazilian akin from ICA), and a good part fromMontepio Geral, as well as the purchase byRTP of the rights for the mini-series.[23] The filming happened between 14 October and 22 December in 2013, and was shot inPonte de Lima,Celorico de Basto,Guimarães andLisbon.[24]
Galleon Theatre Company, the resident producing company at theGreenwich Playhouse, London, has staged theatre adaptations byAlice de Sousa of Eça de Queiroz' novels. In 2001 the company presentedCousin Basílio, and in 2002The Maias.[25]
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