Aquilino Ribeiro


Aquilino Gomes Ribeiro, ComL, was a Portuguese writer and diplomat. He is generally considered to be one of the great Portuguese novelists of the 20th century. In 1960, he was nominated for the Nobel Literature Prize; having been nominated by the.

Biography

Born the natural son of Joaquim Francisco Ribeiro, a priest, and Mariana do Rosário Gomes, he had three older siblings: Maria do Rosário, Melchior and Joaquim. He was originally destined for the priesthood, but became involved with the Portuguese Republican Party in opposition to the Royal House of Braganza, and had to exile himself in Paris. In 1914, he returned to Portugal, after the start of World War I. By then, the Portuguese First Republic had been established.
He was later involved in opposition to António de Oliveira Salazar and the Estado Novo, whose government had moved to censor or ban several of his books.
He was married twice: in 1913 to Grete Tiedemann, a German, by whom he had a son, Aníbal Aquilino Fritz Tiedeman Ribeiro in 1914; then, in 1929, to Jerónima Dantas Machado, daughter of the deposed President of Portugal Bernardino Machado, by whom he had a son, in 1930, who became the 60th Mayor of Lisbon.

Novels