Virgínia Vitorino

Virgínia de Sousa Vitorino (August 13, 1895 – December 21, 1967), better known as Virgínia Vitorino, was a Portuguese poet, playwright, and teacher. She received the Prémio Gil Vicente in 1938.

Biography Virgínia Vitorino was born in 1895 in Alcobaça, Portugal, the daughter of Joaquim de Sousa Vitorino, a mail carrier, and Guilhermina Vila-Nova.

She pursued Romance studies at the University of Lisbon and attended the school of the , where she studied piano and singing, and learned Italian. She went on to teach Portuguese, French, and Italian at the conservatory for around four decades, as well as teaching high school students. On the radio, she used the pseudonym Maria João do Vale.

Over the course of her career, she was the author of three books of poetry and six works of theater, all of which were staged by Amélia Rey Colaço and 's theater company at the D. Maria II National Theatre. She worked with the artist Almada Negreiros to illustrate some of her books.

She died in 1967, in Lisbon, at age 72. She is buried in the Alto de São João Cemetery. Since her death, locations in both Lisboa and her hometown of Alcobaça have been named in her honor.

The scholar Jorge Pereira de Sampaio has labeled her "one of the most influential women in Portuguese literature in the first half of the 20th century." In the Antologia da Poesia Feminina Portuguesa (1972), the writer said that Vitorino wrote "some of the most interesting sonnets of Portuguese love poetry."

Selected works

Namorados (1920) Apaixonadamente (1923) Renúncia (1926) Degredados (1931) play in 3 acts A Volta (1932) play in 3 acts Fascinação (1933) play in 3 acts Manuela (1934) play in 3 acts and 4 scenes Camaradas (1938) play in 3 acts Vendaval (1942) play in 3 acts