Saudades: The Story of a Maiden and a Young Woman - Softcover

Ribeiro, Bernardim

Softcover

ISBN 13: 9798181928657

Publisher: Independently published, 2026

Synopsis

A haunting Renaissance classic of love, exile, memory, and longing—now available in English.

Saudades: The Story of a Maiden and a Young Woman is one of the great early works of Portuguese prose fiction and a landmark of Iberian pastoral literature. Written by Bernardim Ribeiro in the sixteenth century, this deeply lyrical romance opens with one of the most memorable voices in Portuguese letters: a young woman, taken far from home, looking back upon a life transformed by love, loss, and remembrance.

Blending pastoral beauty, courtly emotion, philosophical melancholy, and the uniquely Portuguese feeling of saudade, Ribeiro creates a world where memory is more powerful than presence, love is inseparable from suffering, and every story seems to echo another hidden grief. The novel moves through confessions, encounters, and tales of devotion, revealing a delicate emotional landscape in which the inner life becomes the true setting of the narrative.

This English translation preserves the solemn cadence, poetic density, and antique tenderness of the original while making the work accessible to modern readers. For lovers of Renaissance literature, early European fiction, Portuguese classics, and meditative stories of longing, Saudades offers a rare encounter with one of the foundational voices of Portugal’s literary imagination.

A timeless book for readers drawn to love, memory, solitude, and the beauty of sorrow.

Edition details

• Publisher: Independently published
• Publication date: 2026
• Language: English
• ISBN 13: 9798181928657
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 101