His best-known work was his early short-story collection, Luuanda (1963), which received a Portuguese writers' literary award in 1965.
In 1961, Vieira was arrested while travelling through Portugal with his wife and four-month-old son to a training course in London, organized by his employer, the American company EIMCO.
[8] In 1964, Vieira, Jacinto and Cardoso were transferred by ship to the concentration camp in Tarrafal, Cabo Verde.
He began to publish it, not necessarily in the order in which it was written,[9] after having smuggled his manuscripts out of the camp following the 25 April 1974 military coup in Portugal.
In late 1972 Vieira's controversial short story collection Luuanda was published again in Portugal, but was soon banned for a second time.
[11] Between 1975 and 1992, Vieira held important posts in the cultural bureaucracy of independent Angola, notably as Secretary-General of the Union of Angolan Writers.
He announced the launch of a new trilogy of novels, De rios velhos e guerrilheiros ("On Old Rivers and Guerrillas"), but published only the first two volumes.