150th Birthday of Raúl Brandão

Portrait of the Portuguese writer Raúl Brandão with the inscription "RAUL BRANDÃO" and the dates "1867" and "2017". Below: the issuing state "PORTUGAL"; above: the designer's name Luís Filipe de Abreu and the mintmark.

Raúl Brandão is one of the most distinctive voices in Portuguese literature at the turn of the century. Born in 1867 in Fão on Portugal's northern Atlantic coast, he developed a style that cannot be fully classified as either realism or symbolism: dark, fragmentary, with an almost expressionist force. His novel "Húmus" (1917) is regarded as one of the most radical works of modern Portuguese prose - a meditation on poverty, death and the absurdity of human existence that is still discussed today as a key text of Portuguese literary history. Brandão also wrote plays, memoirs and travel prose, in which he paid particular attention to the lives of ordinary people along the coasts and in the interior.

Brandão remained a marginal figure in literary circles during his lifetime, but after his death in 1930 he was gradually rediscovered as a forerunner of modernism. Today he is a fixed part of the Portuguese school curriculum, and his works are regularly reissued and academically discussed in Lisbon and Porto. Portugal has already honoured him with street names, monuments and cultural awards underscoring his standing as a national author. On the occasion of his 150th birthday in 2017, Portugal honoured Raúl Brandão with a 2-euro commemorative coin.