Novas Cartas Portuguesas by Maria Isabel Barreno,
Maria Teresa Horta and Maria Velho da Costa

Considered a revolutionary text of Portuguese feminism, Novas Cartas Portuguesas is a manifesto against all forms of oppression, advocating for human rights, with subversive, political, and literary content. In this work, published in 1972, Maria Velho da Costa, Maria Teresa Horta, and Maria Isabel Barreno wrote poetry, novels, essays, stories, and letters, and saw their work censored just three days after publication, being accused of immorality and having their texts labeled as pornographic. They were subjected to a legal process that only ended after the April 25, 1974 Revolution.

Maria Isabel Barreno, Maria Teresa Horta, and Maria Velho da Costa

Maria Teresa Horta (1937-), Maria Velho da Costa (1938-2020), and Maria Isabel Barreno (1939-2016), authors of the celebrated work Novas Cartas Portuguesas, met as members of organizations within the Portuguese feminist movement, fighting against a repressive society that constrained women, denying them basic rights of fulfillment and assertion as human beings.
In 1972, they embarked on the adventure of Novas Cartas Portuguesas, a work prohibited by the regime, which would become the epicenter of a national and international scandal known as "the case of the three Marias."