Maria Alzira Seixo passed away in the early hours of January 20 in Lisbon, at the age of 84. Born in Barreiro in 1941, she built a distinguished academic and intellectual career closely associated with the Faculty of Letters of the University of Lisbon, where she served as a professor and educated several generations of students. She began her literary career in 1968 and became one of Portugal’s most rigorous essayists, producing pioneering studies on structuralism and making decisive contributions to the criticism of the contemporary Portuguese novel.

The author of fundamental works such as Discursos do Texto (Discourses of the Text) and A Palavra do Romance (The Word of the Novel), she wrote influential essays on writers such as José Saramago and António Lobo Antunes well before their broad international recognition. Although she described herself as an “occasional poet,” she also left an important body of poetry, notably Letra da Terra (Letter of the Earth). A member of the Academia Europaea, she received numerous national and international awards and honors.

An essayist and full professor at the University of Lisbon, Maria Alzira Seixo had an extensive research career in literary studies. She produced major critical work on several Portuguese authors, including José Saramago and António Lobo Antunes, and authored numerous books, articles, and essays. She was also a regular contributor to cultural periodicals, including JL – Jornal de Letras. In 2002, she was awarded the PEN Prize for Essay (2001) for Outros Erros (Other Errors), ex aequo with João Barrento for A Espiral Vertiginosa (The Vertiginous Spiral).

Translated from: http://livro.dglab.gov.pt/sites/DGLB/Portugues/noticiasEventos/Paginas/Morreu-Maria-Alzira-Seixo.aspx

Selected Works (Active Bibliography)

• A Expressão do Tempo no Romance Português Contemporâneo (The Expression of Time in the Contemporary Portuguese Novel) (Essay), 1968; 1986
• Discursos do Texto (Discourses of the Text) (Essay), 1977
• Letra da Terra (Letter of the Earth) (Poetry), 1983
• Le Parcours du Plaisir. Essai d’analyse d’un texte français du XVIIe siècle: “Francion” de Charles Sorel (Essay), 1985
• “O Amor Primeiro,” Introduction to Garvaia, by Pai Soares de Taveirós, with David Mourão-Ferreira, Eugénio de Andrade, Natália Correia, Alexandre O’Neill, Pedro Tamen, Vasco Graça Moura, Nuno Júdice, Vespeira (Essay), 1985
• A Palavra do Romance. Ensaios de Genologia e Análise (The Word of the Novel: Essays on Genre and Analysis) (Essay), 1986
• O Essencial sobre José Saramago (The Essential on José Saramago) (Monograph), 1987
• Poéticas da Viagem na Literatura (Poetics of Travel in Literature) (Essay), 1998
• Lugares da Ficção em José Saramago. O Essencial e Outros Ensaios (Places of Fiction in José Saramago) (Essay), 1999
• Le Sens du Voyage dans l’Écriture Romanesque (Bilingual French/Greek edition) (Essay), 2000
• Outros Erros. Ensaios de Literatura (Other Errors: Essays on Literature) (Essay), 2001
• Eu Fui ao Mar às Laranjas: Ensaio sobre Luísa Dacosta (Essay), 2001
• Os Romances de António Lobo Antunes: Análise, Interpretação, Resumos e Guiões de Leitura (Essay), 2002
• Diário do Lago (Lake Diary) (Poetry), 2002
• Dicionário da Obra de António Lobo Antunes (Editor and Co-author), 2008
• Memória Descritiva da Fixação do Texto para a Edição Ne Varietur da Obra de António Lobo Antunes, with Graça Abreu, Eunice Cabral, Agripina Carriço Vieira, 2010
• As Flores do Inferno e Jardins Suspensos, Volume II of Os Romances de António Lobo Antunes, with António Bettencourt (Essay), 2010

Collaborative Works (Selection)

• Três Ensaios sobre a Obra de Manuel da Fonseca, Comunicação, Lisbon, 1980
• Leituras de Roland Barthes, Dom Quixote, Lisbon, 1982
• Poéticas do Século XX, Horizonte, Lisbon, 1984
• O Corpo e os Signos (Essays on O Físico Prodigioso by Jorge de Sena), A História Trágico-Marítima. Análises e Perspectivas, Cosmos, Lisbon, 1996
• Viagem e Literatura, Europa-América, Lisbon, 1997
• Lesen, Unbegrenzt Reisen / O Livro e a Viagem sem Limites, exhibition catalogue, Lisbon, 1997
• Les Récits de Voyage: Typologie, Historicité, Cosmos, Lisbon, 1998
• O Discurso Literário da “Peregrinação”, Cosmos, Lisbon, 1999
• A Vertigem do Oriente. Modalidades Discursivas no Encontro de Culturas, Cosmos, Lisbon, 1999
• Colloque de Cerisy / Pessoa, Christian Bourgois, Paris, 2000
• The Paths of Multiculturalism. Travel Writings and Postcolonialism, Cosmos, Lisbon, 2000
• Travel Writing and Cultural Memory, Rodopi, Amsterdam–Atlanta GA, 2000

She also published a large number of essays and studies in national and international journals and periodicals that remain unlisted.

Awards and Distinctions

• PEN Club of Portugal Essay Prize, 1986 (A Palavra do Romance)
• Member of the Academia Europaea, since 1990
• Jacinto do Prado Coelho Prize, Portuguese Center of the International Association of Literary Critics, 1999
• PEN Club of Portugal Essay Prize, 2001 (Outros Erros)
• APE/PT Grand Prize for Literary Essay, 2002
• Vergílio Ferreira Prize, University of Évora, 2010

Honors

• France: Dame of the Order of Academic Palms (1981)
• France: Officer of the Order of Academic Palms (1987)
• Portugal: Grand Officer of the Order of Prince Henry the Navigator (June 8, 2007)

From the Facebook page of Professor Teresa Martins Marques