José Maria Ferreira de Castro was a Portuguese writer and journalist. Ferreira de Castro had a long career in journalism, and considered his fiction writing to be an extension of his documentary reporting; in that regard, he is considered to be one of the fathers of contemporary Portuguese social-realist fiction, a forerunner of socially-committed literature about the rural and working classes later further established by Alves Redol, and more than once a nominee for the Nobel Prize in Literature.
Ferreira de Castro was part of the group of noted public intellectuals that were oppositionists to the authoritarian Estado Novo regime; despite his participation in almost every pacific action directed against the regime, his national and international recognition as an acclaimed novelist meant he was never a victim of excessively violent repression, such as prison, torture or loss of political rights.