José Régio (Vila do Conde, 1901–1969) was the pen name of José Maria dos Reis Pereira. He was one of the most important writers and critics of the literary movement that centred around the magazine, presença (1927–1940), which was associated with the second wave of Modernism in Portugal. He wrote poetry, novels, short stories, essays, drama, chronicles, and literary criticism. He graduated in philology from the University of Coimbra in 1925, then, three years later moved to Portalegre where he worked as a teacher at the Liceu Nacional. He stayed in this town in the Alentejo until 1966. He was a perennial convenor of literary salons (first at the Café Central in Lisbon, then in a café of the same name in Portalegre). Régio is a central figure of Portuguese literature in the twentieth century and was awarded, among other honours, the Grande Prémio da Sociedade Portuguesa de Escritores (in 1963 for Há mais mundos) and in 1970 he was posthumously given the Prémio Nacional de Poesia da Secretaria de Estado da Informação e Turismo (for Música ligeira).
You may find his poetry in…
Si hay en Portugal un lugar donde el tiempo y el espacio se disponen de forma diferente, con una pulsación peculiar y una luz esencial que parecen llevarnos fuera del propio tiempo y el espacio, ese lugar, sin duda, es el Alentejo.
If there is a place in Portugal where time and space work differently, where things have their own unique rhythm, and where the quality of the light seems to transport the visitor to another realm, then that place is most certainly the Alentejo.
