Portuguese poet. Her poetry combines elements of feminism, erotism and pantheism and is known for a peculiar style, with a strong emotional content, where suffering, loneliness and disenchantment are allied to the desire to be happy. Born Flor Bela de Alma da Conceição Espanca, she was the daughter of João Maria Espanca, a businessman and photographer and his housemaid Antónia da Conceição Lobo. Her father's wife, Mariana do Carmo Toscano, who was unable to have her own children, agreed for Florbela to live in their home, where she was raised from birth by both her father's wife and her biological mother, who was 15 years old when she was born. Since her parents weren't married, she was baptised as a child of unknown father. Her father only claimed paternity in 1949, 19 years after her death. In 1903, Espanca wrote her earliest known poem, "A Vida e a Morte" ("Life and Death"), when she was 8 years old. In 1908, her mother died at the age of 29. In the same year, Espanca became one of the first female students to enroll in the André de Gouveia Lyceum, a traditionally male school in Évora, Portugal. 1913, Espanca failed a final examination and dropped out of school, and on her 19th birthday, she married Alberto Moutinho, a longtime friend and classmate. Espanca and Moutinho moved to Redondo, Portugal, where they both worked as teachers. Espanca taught French, English, geography and history. In 1915, due to financial difficulties, they moved in with Espanca's father in Évora and continued teaching. From 1915 to 1917, she collected all of her poems into a work entitled "O livro D'el" ("His book") that she dedicated to her brother. In 1916, Espanca re-enrolled in secondary school at the Évora Lyceum. After graduating in 1917, she and Moutinho moved to Lisbon so Espanca could attend the University of Lisbon, where she was one of seven women, out of a total of 313 students, enrolled in Law School. Six months later, Espanca had a miscarriage. She had another miscarriage in 1919 and around the same time, she began to show the first serious symptoms of mental illness, classified at the time as "neurosis". Later that same year, "Livro de Mágoas" ("Book of Sorrows") was published. In 1921 Espanca and Moutinho divorced, which exposed her to significant social prejudice. She was remarried in 1922 to António Guimarães. Espanca had another miscarriage in 1923 and Guimarães filed for divorce a few months later. "Livro de Soror Saudade" ("Sister Saudade's Book") was published the same year. In 1925 she was married for a third time to Mário Lage, a doctor who had treated her for a long time. In the sonnet "Amar" ("To Love"), which was published in her last book, "Charneca em Flor" ("Heath in Bloom"), Espanca expressed a "consuming desire to satisfy her need to love freely as a woman and her inability to channel that love into a socially acceptable, exclusive, monogamous mode", which according to Tomás Braga, was a revolutionary statement for Portuguese love sonnets. Espanca's brother died in a seaplane accident on June 6, 1927, at the age of 30 and his body was never recovered, which deeply affected her. His death inspired the writing of "As Máscaras do Destino" ("The Masks of Destiny"). After being diagnosed with pulmonary edema, Espanca starting keeping a diary and twice attempted suicide shortly before the completion of "Charneca em Flor". In 1930, Espanca began to write "Diário do Último Ano" ("Diary of the Last Year"), which was only published in 1981. Espanca died by suicide on December 8, 1930, her 36th birthday, from an overdose of barbiturates, in Matosinhos. She left a confidential letter with her latest provisions, among them, the request for the only two remaining floats of the seaplane in which her brother died to be placed inside her coffin. "Charneca em Flor" was published a month later, in January 1931. In the same year, "Reliquiare", a title given by the Italian professor Guido Battelli, was published with the poems she wrote on a further version of "Charneca em Flor". Her remains would be moved from Matosinhos to her hometown of Vila Viçosa on May 17, 1964.