Maria Teresa Horta

Maria Teresa de Mascarenhas Horta Barros (20 May 1937 – 4 February 2025) was a Portuguese feminist poet, journalist and activist. She is one of the authors of the book Novas Cartas Portuguesas (New Portuguese Letters), together with Maria Isabel Barreno and Maria Velho da Costa. The authors, known as the "Three Marias," were arrested, jailed and prosecuted under Portuguese censorship laws in 1972, during the last years of the Estado Novo dictatorship. The book and their trial inspired protests in Portugal and attracted international attention from European and American women's liberation groups in the years leading up to the Carnation Revolution.

Quotes

New Portuguese Letters (1972)

• And once again, the three of us find ourselves together, just as we have in many times and decisions: refusing to be shadow, sedative, or warrior’s rest. Warriors, we—women whole in body and with a steady hand.

• A commune of women or suffragists—that’s what they already call us, with a cold laugh born of the insecurity of seeing us together: an insurmountable barrier, the group of us three.