Ladislau Batalha

Secondary school teacher, publicist, and socialist leader. Embarked as a crew member on merchant ships, he traveled for many years through the boreal seas, the United States, Japan, China, and Ceylon, performing a wide variety of professions, from glass engraver in São Tomé to taxidermist in the African hinterland. From his travels, he accumulated a vast amount of knowledge and became familiar with many languages, ancient and modern, so much so that he became a secondary school teacher without any formal degree. A militant of the Socialist Party, he wrote several political books and delivered numerous lectures. His work spans various genres, from novels to theater, from travel books to ethnographic studies. He contributed to a large number of newspapers and magazines, both in Portugal and abroad (Diário de Notícias, A Vanguarda, República, El Socialista, etc.), and at the time of his death, he was working on a book, Gente da Nossa Terra, in which he referred to the most prominent figures in literary, political, theatrical, and other circles with whom he had interacted. In 1919, he welcomed the poet Gomes Leal into his home (where he eventually died in 1921) when the latter was wandering, in a gentle madness, through the streets and gardens of Lisbon.