Lília da Fonseca

In 1957 she was an opposition candidate in legislative elections for Portugal's Assembly of the Republic, becoming the first woman named to an electoral list.

In 1950, she founded the magazine Jornal-Magazine da Mulher ("Women's Newsmagazine") in Lisbon, and she served as its editor until the last issue, in 1956. She also founded the Suplemento Literário Mãos de Fada: Revista de lavores femininos ("Fairy Hands Literary Supplement: Magazine of Women's Labor") and worked on the feminist magazine Os Nossos Filhos ("Our Children"), which offered an alternative educational curriculum in opposition to the Estado Novo regime's.

In November 1945, she signed a manifesto of intellectuals protesting against "all kinds of limitations" placed on intellectual activity by the regime. She was also involved in anti-war efforts, signing the Manifesto Pela Paz entre as Nações ("For Peace Among Nations").

Her first novel, Panguila, was published in 1944 under the name Lília da Fonseca. The book paints a faithful portrait of society in colonial Benguela at the time.

Maria Lígia Valente da Fonseca Severino (May 21, 1906 – August 14, 1991) was a Portuguese and Angolan feminist journalist and writer. She used the pseudonym Lília da Fonseca in her writing. She was the first woman to join a candidate list in legislative elections for Portugal's Assembly of the Republic, in 1957.

Maria Valente da Fonseca was born in 1906 in Benguela, Angola, to an Angolan mother and European father. She moved to Portugal when she was very young and studied at the Liceu Infanta D. Maria in Coimbra and the Escola Carolina Michäelis in Porto.