New Portuguese Letters

New Portuguese Letters

Authors	Maria Isabel Barreno Maria Teresa Horta Maria Velho da Costa
Original title	Novas Cartas Portuguesas
Translator	Helen R Lane
Language	Portuguese
Subject	Feminism
Published	1972 (Portugal) 1975 (UK, US)
Publisher	Estúdios Cor (Portugal) Victor Gollancz (UK) Doubleday (US)
Publication place	Portugal
Media type	Print

New Portuguese Letters (Portuguese: Novas Cartas Portuguesas) is a literary work composed of letters, essays, poems, fragments, puzzles and excerpts from legal documents, published jointly by the Portuguese writers Maria Isabel Barreno, Maria Teresa Horta and Maria Velho da Costa in 1972. The authors became known internationally as "The Three Marias", which became the title of the book in its first translation to English.

The book's publication and banning, its subsequent stage adaptations, and the international outcry over the arrest of the authors, revealed to the world the existence of extremely discriminatory dictatorial repression and the power of the Catholic patriarchy in Portugal. New Portuguese Letters also denounced the injustices of Portuguese colonialism and played a part in the downfall of the Second Republic and the authoritarian regimes which had ruled Portugal since 1926.