[2] The book and their trial inspired protests in Portugal and attracted international attention from European and American women's liberation groups in the years leading up to the Carnation Revolution.

She has worked as a secondary school teacher and served as president of the Associação Portuguesa de Escritores (Portuguese Association of Writers).

Already an established writer by 1969, with the novel Maina Mendes, she became better known after the controversy over Novas Cartas Portuguesas (New Portuguese Letters), a work that protested in open opposition to traditionally feminine values.

[5][6] She expanded the theses of the vindication of women's rights, already proclaimed in Novas Cartas Portuguesas, in her later work, a non-confirmism concerning narrative canons, which could also be seen in her essays.

[7] She received the following awards: She received the following honors from the Government of Portugal: In 2020, the Sociedade Portuguesa de Autores (Portuguese Society of Authors) instituted the Prémio de Literatura Maria Velho Costa (Maria Velho Costa Prize in Literature) in her honor, and awarded the first prize in the same year to the author Teresa Noronha, for her book Tornado.