This book exposes how Fado lyricists have appropriated popular novelist and playwright Julio Danta\'s forging of Mouraria fadista/ prostitute Maria Severa as a national heroine, and the Fado as the national song--in A Severa (1901) and A Severa: Peca em Quatro Actos (1901)--to manifest a sub-rosa criticism of the Estado Novo\'s demolition of the Mouraria between the 1930s and 1970s..
This book exposes how Fado lyricists have appropriated popular novelist and playwright Julio Danta\'s forging of Mouraria fadista/ prostitute Maria Severa as a national heroine, and the Fado as the national song--in A Severa (1901) and A Severa: Peca em Quatro Actos (1901)--to manifest a sub-rosa criticism of the Estado Novo\'s demolition of the Mouraria between the 1930s and 1970s.