Namora Goncalves, Fernando

Namora Gonçalves, Fernando 

Born Apr. 15, 1919, in Condeliza-a-Nova, near Coimbra. Portuguese writer.

The son of a peasant, Namora Goncalves graduated from the medical department of the University of Coimbra in 1942. He is one of the great Portuguese neorealist writers. In 1938 he published his first poetry collection, Reliefs. In his novels The Seven Parts of the World (1938) and Fire in the Dark Night (1943), which deal with Portuguese youth, and in The Mines of Sao Francisco (1946), Night and Dawn (1950), Wheat and Weeds (1954), and Sunday Afternoon (1961), he realistically depicts Portuguese life, providing a profound psychological analysis of his characters. He is especially concerned with the fate of the working people, and his novels protest social injustice.

In 1959, Namora Gonçalves published the short-story collection The Lonely City. His Stories From the Life of a Doctor (part 1, 1949; part 2, 1963; Russian translation, 1968) deal with his work in the outlying regions of Portugal. His most important poetry collections are The Land (1941) and Marketing (1969). He is also the author of the novels Life in the Underground (1972) and We Are Where the Wind Is (1974).

WORKS

Un sino na montanha: Cadernos de um escritor. [Lisbon, 1968.]
In Russian translation:
“Veter.” In Byla temnaia noch’: Rasskazy portugal’skikh pisatelei. Moscow, 1962.

REFERENCES

Sacramento, M. Fernando Namora. Lisbon [no date].
Lopes, O. Fernando Namora. Porto, 1957.

E. A. RIADUZOVA