José Maria Eça de Queiroz was born on 27 November 1845. Most of his biographers points as the birthplace of the writer to Póvoa de Varzim, based on the statement, which he wrote himself, 'I am no more than a poor man of Póvoa de Varzim.' Although there is no certainty about their true homeland, Vila do Conde and Póvoa de Varzim, it is known that was in Vila do Conde that Jose Maria was baptized on December 1, 1845, in the main Church of Vila do Conde. The baptism certificate gives him as a son of bachelor José Maria Teixeira de Queiroz and unknown mother. The child, after baptism, was taken to the home of his godmother, Ana Joaquina Leal Barros, who was created from Pizarro Monteiro family and lived in Rua da Costa. He stayed here probably up to age 6, when it will live to Aveiro, to his paternal grandparents` home. He graduated in law at the University of Coimbra, where he met Antero de Quental and other figures that would belong to the generation of 70.
It is considered as one of the greatest novelists of all Portuguese-speaking literature. The social criticism, or the portrait of a mean society, conservative, ignorant, hypocritical, is present in almost all his novels. His characters are caricatures, that, still today, we can recognize in many of the players in today's society.
Eça de Queiroz was a diplomat, having lived in Cuba, England and France. It was in that country that would die in August 1900. He is buried in Santa Cruz, between the landscape he had described and chose as the setting for one of the titles that many consider to be his masterpiece – “ A cidade e as serras” ( The City and the Mountains). Vila do Conde has not forgotten him, and have marked the house where he lived his early years.vvv
Location: Vila do Conde
