He wrote poetry, short stories, a genre in which he is accounted a master, theater and a 16 volume diary, written from 1932 to 1993.

After a short spell as a student in a catholic seminary in Lamego, his father sent him to Brazil in 1920, where he worked on an uncle's coffee plantation.

After the publication of the book O Quarto Dia da Criação do Mundo he was arrested for two months, between December 1939 and February 1940.

His agnostic beliefs are reflected in his work, which deals mainly with the nobility of the human condition in a beautiful but ruthless world where God is either absent or nothing but a passive and silent, indifferent creator.

Brazilian novelist Jorge Amado several times stated that Torga deserved that honour and the 1978 nomination had the support of Vicente Aleixandre, the winner of the previous years.