Soeiro Pereira Gomes
Joaquim Soeiro Pereira Gomes (14 April 1909 – 5 December 1949) was a Portuguese writer of realist influence and became one of the major names of Portuguese literature of the 20th century. Pereira Gomes is, along with Alves Redol, the biggest name of the Portuguese neo-realist movement. He was also a communist militant and that was always present in his work. The Portuguese Communist Party headquarters (Soeiro Pereira Gomes Building), in Lisbon, is named after him. Life Soeiro was born in Gestaçô, Baião, Porto District, the son of two farmers. He studied in the Agricultural School in Coimbra. After finishing his studies, he emigrated to Portuguese Angola, where he worked for one year before returning to Portugal. He then settled in Alhandra, working in the local cement plant, where he developed an intense campaign of cultural dynamization among the workers. But what really made him remarkable was his work as a writer and his influence upon Portuguese society socialist realism. In 1939, he started publishing his first texts in the weekly newspaper O Diabo. Among his major works there are two novels of deep social criticism -- Esteiros and Engrenagem -- and several stories that are an exaltation of Communism