Júlia Lopes de Almeida

Who was Júlia Lopes de Almeida?

Júlia Valentina de Silveira Lopes de Almeida was one of the first Brazilian women to earn acclaim and social acceptance as a writer. In a career that spanned five decades, she wrote in a variety of literary genres; however, it is her fiction, written under the influence of the naturalists Émile Zola and Guy de Maupassant, that has captured the attention of recent critics. Her notable novels include Memórias de Marta, the first Brazilian novel to take place in an urban tenement, A Família Medeiros, and A Falência. Immensely influential and appreciated by peers like Aluísio Azevedo, João do Rio and João Luso, she is remembered as an early advocate of modernized gender roles and increased women's rights, as a precursor to later women writers like Clarice Lispector, and for her support of abolition. She was married to the poet Filinto de Almeida.