Júlia Lopes de Almeida (1862 - 1934)

Júlia Valentina de Silveira Lopes de Almeida (Sept. 24, 1862 - May 30, 1934) 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 (Marta's Memoirs), the first Brazilian novel to take place in an urban tenement, A Família Medeiros (The Medeiros Family), and A Falência (The Bankruptcy).