On 2nd October, from 1.00pm to 2.00pm, there will be another session of the Reading Club, this time dedicated to Camilo Castelo Branco’s bicentenary, which is being celebrated this year.
For this session, we have invited Sónia Valente Rodrigues, Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Arts and Humanities of the University of Porto. The session will be moderated by Luís Melo, Professor Emeritus at the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto. The session will take place in the Library’s Ground floor, room C003 (former Bookshop).
Camilo Castelo Branco was born on 16th March 1825 in Lisbon. After losing both his mother and father, he went to live in Vila Real with a paternal aunt. In 1844, he moved to Porto to study medicine, but ended up not passing the second year, turning instead to writing and journalism. He devoted his entire life to writing and love affairs. He was imprisoned in the “Cadeia da Relação” for loving Ana Plácido, a married woman, and it was in prison that he wrote “Amor de Perdição”. Ana Plácido was widowed in 1963 and Camilo went to live with her.
From 1881 onwards, his eye problems worsened, leading to blindness and making it impossible for him to write. He committed suicide on 1st June 1890 in S. Miguel de Seide, Famalicão.
Camilo Castelo Branco's writing is marked by emotional intensity, sharp irony and vivid portraits of 19th-century Portuguese society. His texts explore overwhelming passions, moral conflicts and family dramas, often with subtle criticism of social customs and hypocrisy. Mixing lyricism and humour, Camilo managed to alternate between the tragic and the satirical, creating narratives that still impress today with the strength of their characters and their ability to captivate the reader.
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