Mónica

by Aquilino Ribeiro

Romances Completos de Aquilino Ribeiro, #9

211 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1939

About the author

Aquilino Gomes Ribeiro was a Portuguese writer and diplomat. He is considered as one of the great Portuguese novelists of the 20th century. He was nominated for the Nobel Literature Prize in 1960.

Natural son of Joaquim Francisco Ribeiro, a priest, and Mariana do Rosário Gomes, he had three older siblings: Maria do Rosário, Melchior and Joaquim. Destinated to priesthood, Aquilino Ribeiro got involved in republican politics, opposing the Portuguese monarchy, and had to exile himself in Paris; he returned to Portugal in 1914, after the Republican Revolution of 1910.

He was involved in the opposition to António de Oliveira Salazar and the Estado Novo, whose government tried to censor or ban several of his books.

He married twice, firstly in 1913 to German Grete Tiedemann (ca. 1890-1927), by whom he had a son Aníbal Aquilino Fritz Tiedeman Ribeiro in 1914, and secondly in Paris in 1929 to Jerónima Dantas Machado, daughter of the deposed President of Portugal Bernardino Machado, by whom he had a son Aquilino Ribeiro Machado, born in Paris in 1930, who became the 60th Mayor of Lisbon (1977–1979).

Reviews

[Luís · Rating 3 out of 5]

Since "Andam Faunos Pelos Bosques", Aquilino Ribeiro promised to "go down to the city". His first attempt at a city romance was "Maria Benigna", which, to our knowledge, is a failed attempt. But, years later, he appears to us now, already equipped with an intrigue that was almost totally lacking in that one, with his new novel "Mónica".
The subject of "Mónica" is a subject likely to be of interest. The central solution would be acceptable if the novelist intended to justify it. We cannot take it as a simple painting because the main characters lack the psychological structure that gives their case the throbbing of life that a good novelist achieves in the most abstruse situations. As a move imposed by the content of humanity, characterized by the characters, it is also not set because the particular of the case excludes any projection or purpose from it. It should note that such a situation is more dramatic than romanesque. In the drama, it will arrive through a painting of characters that would have implanted through the very intensity of the conflict.

[Maria Tavares · Rating 3 out of 5]

O livro em si exala um poder de outro século, capaz de nos transportar para outro tempo.
Devido a ser um clássico, a escrita não é atual, mas lê-se bem.
A história em si levanta muitas questões, mas isso também se deve à mudança de pensamento da sociedade portuguesa.