Novel
The Crime of Father Amaro
O Crime do Padre Amaro
Eça de Queiroz · 1876
Synopsis
In Leiria, a small episcopal town, the parish priest of the cathedral dies, and the young Amaro, a priest with no vocation, is appointed in his place. On the recommendation of Canon Dias, his former teacher, he takes lodgings with the São Joaneira, a pious widow and the canon's mistress, whose daughter, Amélia, is promised to a young clerk, João Eduardo. Amaro falls in love with her. Around them, a clergy more concerned with good food than with faith, devout women and gossip.
Context
Eça, who had been for six months administrator of the district of Leiria, set his first novel there. The first version appeared as a serial in the Revista Ocidental, from February to May 1875, without the author's consent; he took it up again for a volume in 1876, then rewrote it profoundly for the 1880 edition. Machado de Assis, among others, accused him of imitating Zola's La Faute de l'abbé Mouret; in the preface of 1880, Eça replied that his book had been written in 1871 and read to friends in 1872, before Zola's.
Who it is for
A long novel, of critical realism. The attack on the provincial clergy never weakens.
Prizes and reception
Regarded by many as the best Portuguese realist novel of the nineteenth century; adapted for the cinema in Mexico in 2002, then in Portugal in 2005.
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