Grand Officers of the Order of Saint James of the Sword

José_Gomes_Ferreira

José Gomes Ferreira, GOSE, GOL (9 July 1900 – 1985) was a Portuguese poet and fiction writer with a vast work of varied influences. Gomes Ferreira was also a political activist who participated in the resistance against the dictatorship of Oliveira Salazar, becoming later a member of the Portuguese Communist Party. In the late 1970s he held the presidency of the Portuguese Writers Association.
A native of Porto, Ferreira graduated in law in 1924 and became a consul in Norway in the late 1920s. Soon after, he became a journalist and published his works in several progressive magazines. After the rise of the right-wing dictatorship led by Salazar, Ferreira he acquainted himself with the democratic resistance movements. During the later years of the regime, he continued publishing and saw his poetic work recognized by his peers. After the Carnation Revolution, Ferreira joined the Communist Party and continued his work until the mid-1980s.
His artistic work was representative of his concern with social problems, a mirror of his leftwing ideology. His poetry had varied influences, ranging from neorealism to surrealism, in a dialectic relation between his own ego and the need to share other people suffering.