Oliveira Lima

Born in Recife on December 25, 1867, Manoel de Oliveira Lima became known as a Brazilian writer, literary critic, historian, journalist, and diplomat. He represented Brazil in several countries, spent time as a visiting professor at Harvard, and was also a founding member of the Brazilian Academy of Letters.

Alongside his public career, he was a serious collector of books and documents. The collection he built with his wife, Flora de Oliveira Lima, eventually became the Oliveira Lima Library at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., after they donated it in 1916. That library grew out of his personal collection and remains closely tied to his legacy as a scholar of Brazil and the wider Portuguese-speaking world.

He died in Washington, D.C., on March 24, 1928. Today he is remembered not only for his books and essays, but also for the remarkable archive he assembled for future readers and researchers.