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Literature - 3 |
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Jorge Amado's first novels, translated into 33 languages, were heavily influenced by his belief in Marxist ideas and concentrated on the sufferings of workers on the cocoa plantations of his home state of Bahia and on humble fishermen in seaside villages. In the 1950's he opted for a more jovial approach to the joys and sorrows of the middle classes of Bahia, producing a succession of books which have received worldwide acclaim. Gabriela, Cravo e Canela (Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon) is perhaps the best known of Amado's books. Dona Flôr e seus Dois Maridos (Dona Flôr and Her two Husbands) has provided the scripts for films, plays, and television. Arguably the most innovative Brazilian writer of his century was João Guimarães Rosa (1908-1967). A career diplomat, he first captured the attention of the public and critics alike with a volume of short stories, Sagarana, soon followed by his best known work Grande Sertão: Veredas, translated into English as The Devil to Pay in the Backlands. Delving deep into speech mannerisms from the hinterland region of the eastern seaboard, Guimarães Rosa started something of a semantic revolution. He dared to present his readers with coined word combinations and syntax so unrestrained as to constitute almost a new language.
There are many other noteworthy Brazilian writers. Gilberto Freyre (1900-1987), a master of style and a pioneer of the new school of Brazilian sociologists, is the author of Casa Grange & Senzala (The Masters and The Slaves) a perceptive study of Brazilian society. One of the best known Brazilian poets is João Cabral de Melo Neto (1918-). His poetry is sober and he uses words with the accuracy with which an engineer would use his building materials. Special mention must be made of Vinicius de Moraes (1913-1980). His poetry became part and parcel of the bossa nova musical movement which produced a new style of samba, that typically Brazilian rhythm. Vinicius (as he is known worldwide) also wrote a play, Orfeu da Conceição, which became internationally famous as the film Black Orpheus.
Among the living or recently deceased novelists, mention should be made of: Orígenes Lessa, Adonias Filho, Érico Veríssimo, Dinah Silveira de Queiroz, Lygia Fagundes Telles, Herberto Sales, Rubem Fonseca, Clarice Lispector, Dalton Trevisan, Nélida Pinõn, Osman Lins, and Moacir Scliar; and among the poets: Raul Bopp, Murilo Mendes, Augusto Frederico Schmidt, Mário Quintana, Cassiano Ricardo, Jorge de Lima, Ferreira Gullar, Cecília Meireles, Augusto de Campos, Haroldo de Campos, José Paulo Paes, Ariano Suassuna, Antonio Callado, Silviano Santiago, Autran Dourado, Caio Fernando Abreu and João Gilbeto Noll.
There are many other noteworthy Brazilian writers. Gilberto Freyre (1900-1987), a master of style and a pioneer of the new school of Brazilian sociologists, is the author of Casa Grande & Senzala (The Masters and the Slaves) a perceptive study of Brazilian society. Florestan Fernandes (1920-1995) together with Gilberto Freyre, the most prominent Brazilian social thinker, analysed with vigour and wit the main contradictions of Brazilian society and political system. Among his many writings, essays and treatises, A Organização Social dos Tupinambás (The Social Structure of Tupinambá Indians) reached a paramount position in Latin American Sociology, influencing academics and researchers in Europe and in the U.S.A. Sérgio Buarque de Holanda’s Raízes do Brasil (Roots of Brazil), Raymundo Faoro’s Os donos do Poder (The Owners of Power) and Caio Prado Jr.’s História Econômica do Brasil (Economic History of Brazil) are also landmarks of the social and political thought of Brazil in the 20th century.
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