English: Grave of Manuel de Oliveira Lima at Mount Olivet Cemetery in Washington, D.C., in the United States.

Oliveira Lima was born in Recife, Brazil, on December 25, 1867, to a Brazilian mother and Portugese father. In 1873, the family moved to Lisbon, where Oliveira Lima graduated from the Faculty of Letters (today part of the University of Lisbon) in 1888 with a degree in classical and modern literature. Oliveira Lima began working as a journalist at the age of 14, and in 1890 began working for the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He served as a diplomat in Portugal, Belgium, Germany, Japan, and the United States. He wrote extensively on German philosophy, authored three books on Japan, and completed a biography of João VI (King of the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarves from 1816 to 1822). Fond of books, Oliveira Lima collected the third-largest library in Brazil. First secretary of the Brazilian legation at the Brazilian embassy in the United States beginning in 1896, he brought his library with him and donated the 40,000-volume collection to the Catholic University of America in 1916. It remains the finest collection of Luso-Brazilian materials in the U.S. There is no other specialized collection of comparable depth anywhere else in the world -- particularly for the study of Portuguese expansion in the 16th century and for the social and cultural history of Brazil from the arrival of the Portuguese court (1808) to 1930.

From 1923 until his death in 1928, Oliveira Lima served as professor of international law at CUA. In 1924, he was appointed Honorary Professor of the Faculty of Law of Recife.

Oliveira Lima died suddenly at his home in Washington, D.C., on March 24, 1928. He was buried at Mount Olivet Cemetery. His tombstone does not include his name; rather, it is inscribed with the Portugese phrase "Aqui jaz um amigo dos livros" (Here lies a friend of books).