History and origins of Northeastern literature: Biographies and contributions of the main authors

The maturity of Brazilian literature

Brazilian literature was born mature, expressing itself in the language of the 17th century – the Baroque – thanks to a writer from the Northeast, Gregório de Mattos. Since then, Northeastern literature has shown an extraordinary vitality.

The cultural phenomenon of the cordel

The Northeast region has also created a cultural phenomenon, the Cordel, which, with the novels of Jorge Amado, has become a face of Brazilian identity recognised throughout the world.

Gregório de Mattos: The Mouth of Hell

If, as Haroldo de Campos believed, Brazilian literature had no childhood, this means that it was “born” mature, expressing itself in the most elaborate language of the 17th century – the Baroque – thanks to a writer from the northeast of Brazil, the Bahian poet Gregório de Mattos (1636-1696).

With a Bachelor’s degree from the University of Coimbra and a solid cultural background, Gregório became famous for his relentless satirical poetry against the powerful, which earned him the nickname “Boca do Inferno”. However, his work was not limited to disqualifying religious and political figures, which made it surprisingly topical. Gregório also produced lyrical and sacred verse.

The Northeast’s contribution to national literature

The contribution of “Boca do Inferno” would be only the first in a series that the Northeast would make to national literary history, even if we consider, as we do here, only a selection of poets and fiction writers. This contribution is by no means limited to the authors who emerged from modern regionalism – such as Jorge Amado (1912-2000) from Bahia, Graciliano Ramos (1892-1953) from Alagoas and Rachel de Queiroz (1910-2003) from Ceará, to name but a few.

Romanticism and its influence

Romanticism marked a notable presence of writers from the Northeast. Gonçalves Dias (1823-1864), from Maranhão, inaugurated a tradition of the state’s strength in national letters, and Castro Alves (1847-1871), from Bahia, became virtually synonymous with poetry in the country.

Outstanding poets and writers

Another man from Maranhão, Joaquim de Sousa Andrade (1833-1902), known as Sousandrade, is a very rare case. With his poem “O Guesa” (1867-1888), he brought Brazilian literature to the forefront of the continent. In the poem, Sousandrade takes up a Quechua legend about the sacrifice of a young man to the sun god and imagines the character escaping from the priests and taking refuge on Wall Street.

Also from Maranhão was the journalist and politician Manuel Odorico Mendes (1799-1864), who took on the challenge of translating Homer and Virgil. As a counterpoint to this erudition, it’s worth remembering that it was only in the first half of the 19th century that popular poetry in the Northeast began to take shape, until it was consecrated in the formidable cultural phenomenon that was Cordel literature.

Born with the first private printing presses in Brazil, and consolidated from the 1930s onwards, cordel established poets such as Aderaldo Ferreira de Araujo, Cego Aderaldo (1878-1967), from Ceará, and Antonio Gonçalves Silva, Patativa do Assaré (1909-2002).

José de Alencar and the literary project

The name of José de Alencar (1829-1877), from the state of Ceará, stands out in the Romantic fiction of the Northeast. Like few other writers, Alencar had a systematic “literary project”, which included the development of a “Brazilian language” and led him to write novels on a variety of themes: Indianist, regional, urban, historical, etc. Some are a must – among them “O Guarani” (1857), “Lucíola” (1862) and “Iracema” (1865).

The development of Northeastern literature

His fellow countryman Joaquim Franklin da Silveira Távora (1842-1888) believed that it was in his region that an “authentic” Brazilian literature could be forged, something that the south was prevented from doing due to the large presence of foreigners. With “O Cabeleira” (1876), he wanted to write a novel that was more committed to the scenarios he described.

The concern for fidelity to reality, treated objectively, was, as we know, the motto of Realism, the strand that buried Romanticism and consecrated the genius of Machado de Assis. On the naturalist side, the new aesthetic emphasised the determinism of “natural laws”.

Naturalists and Parnassian poetry

With “O Mulato” (1881) and especially “O Cortiço” (1890), the Maranhão-born Aluísio de Azevedo emerged as the greatest novelist of Brazilian naturalism, which also consecrated Adolfo Caminha (1867-1897), author of “A Normalista” (1893) and “O Bom Crioulo” (1895), among the northeasterners.

Also from Ceará were the regionally inspired naturalists Domingos Olímpia (1850-1906), who wrote “Luzia-Homem” (1903), and Manuel de Oliveira Paiva (1861-1892), whose “Dona Guidinha do Poço” (1952) was published posthumously.

Literature and poetry of the period

In the poetry that marked this period, the Parnassian, the Maranhão poet Raimundo Correia (1859-1911) achieved a prominent place. Before modernism, the Paraíba poet Augusto dos Anjos (1884-1914) stood out, while the Maranhão poet Graça Aranha (1868-1931), another important author of this period, would go down in history mainly for his participation in the 1922 Week.

The heyday of regionalist literature

It wasn’t long before a particularly successful period of Brazilian literature began, in which regionalist fiction, especially from the Northeast, reached a level of excellence. The starting point was “A Bagaceira” (1928) by José Américo de Almeida (1887-1980) from Paraíba, followed by “O Quinze” (1930) by Rachel de Queiroz, “Menino de Engenho (1932) by José Lins do Rego (1901-1957) from Paraíba and Caetés (1933) by Graciliano Ramos.

The first “Bahia novel” by Jorge Amado was also published in 1933: “Cacau”. Over the course of his career, Jorge Amado published more than thirty books, translated into around fifty languages.

The importance of Jorge Amado

The importance of Jorge Amado’s work, which is often viewed with reservations, goes beyond the literary sphere to a socio-cultural level. It is undeniable that a certain part of Brazilian identity has become known throughout the world thanks to the novels of the Bahian writer.

Nevertheless, Jorge Amado preferred to admire his contemporaries. When he read “Caetés” – in the original, lent to him by José Américo de Almeida – he took a boat to Alagoas to meet Graciliano Ramos, in whom he always saw a model writer.

Novels that go beyond regionalism

Novels such as “São Bernardo” (1934) and “Vidas Secas” (1938) go beyond the regionalist code. In the former, Adonias Filho (1915-1990), another Bahian novelist, stressed the primacy of the literary over the documentary. As for Vidas Secas, it is one of the best-made books in Brazilian literature, with a perfect harmony between plot and narrative.

Overcoming regionalism

Overcoming regionalism would bring out writers with more universal ambitions, usually focusing on intuitive and experimental prose. For example, Osman Lins (1924-1978) from Pernambuco, author of “O Visitante” (1955), who in 1973 published “Avalovara”, a novel with a complex and original structure.

Two years earlier, Ariano Suassuna from Paraíba (1927) had made his debut in narrative prose with “Romance d’A Pedra do Reino” (1971). The same year saw the publication of “Cais da Sagração” by Josué Montello (1971) and “Sargento Getúlio” by João Ubaldo Ribeiro (1941), also the author of “Viva o Povo Brasileiro” (1982).

The maturing of Northeastern fiction

The maturing of Northeastern fiction since Modernism has seen a similar advance in poetry. Consider the work of a writer like Manuel Bandeira (1886-1968) from Pernambuco, who emphasised aesthetic freedom and metaphysical reflection in his work.

Jorge de Lima (1895-1953), from Alagoas, took on an epic dimension in “Invenção de Orfeu” (1952). Cultivating an “objective” poetry, João Cabral de Melo Neto (1920-1999), from Pernambuco, created his own poetics which, despite its formalist rigour, found room for social denunciation, as can be seen in “Morte e Vida Severina” (1956).

The same care is present in the work of Ferreira Gullar (1930-2016) from Maranhão. After devoting himself to concretist poetry in “A Luta Corporal” (1954), Gullar distanced himself more and more from this experience until “Poema Sujo” (1976), in which, from political exile, he evoked his native São Luís with rare poetic mastery.

New writers from the northeast

The Piauí-born Mário Faustino (1930-1962), who died prematurely in a plane crash, was an erudite critic who tried to find his own way in his poetry, written amidst the brilliance of the talents of the time. Finding their own way continues to be the proposal of new authors from the Northeast, such as Carlos Ribeiro (1958) from Bahia and Marcelino Freire (1967) from Pernambuco, whose production confirms the vitality of a literature that, having been born mature, as we have seen, has not aged. It remains strong, mature – great.

Writers who marked the literary history of the Northeast

1. Biography of Jorge Amado – Bahia
2. Biography of Tobias Barreto – Sergipe
3. Biography of Lêdo Ivo – Alagoas
4. Biography of João Cabral de Melo Neto – Pernambuco
5. Biography of Augusto dos Anjos – Paraíba

1. Biography of Jorge Amado – Bahia

Jorge Amado (1912-2001) was a Brazilian writer. His novel “Gabriela Cravo e Canela” won the Jabuti and Machado de Assis prizes. His books have been translated into nearly every language.

He was a member of the Brazilian Academy of Letters, holding chair number 23. He began his writing career with regionalist and social denunciatory works. He went through different phases until he reached the phase of chronicling customs. Politically committed to socialist ideas, he was arrested twice, once in 1936 and again in 1937.

In exile he lived in Buenos Aires, France, Prague and several other countries with people’s democracies. He returned to Brazil in 1952. Among his works adapted for television, cinema and theatre are “Dona Flor e Seus Dois Maridos”, “Gabriela Cravo e Canela”, “Tenda dos Milagres” and “Tieta do Agreste”.

Jorge Amado was born on 10 August 1912 at the Auricídia farm in Ferradas, in the municipality of Itabuna, Bahia. He was the son of cocoa farmers João Amado de Faria and Eulália Leal Amado. He spent his childhood in the city of Ilhéus, where he learned his first letters. He attended secondary school at the Antônio Vieira College in Salvador.

At the age of 12, he ran away from the boarding school and went to Itaporanga, in Sergipe, where his grandmother lived. He spent his teenage years among the people, getting to know popular life, which would strongly influence his work as a novelist. At the age of 14, he began to participate in literary life and was one of the founders of the “Academia dos Rebeldes”, a group of young people who, together with “Arco e Flecha” and “Samba”, played an important role in the renewal of Bahian literature.

Led by Pinheiro Viegas, the Academia dos Rebeldes included, besides Jorge Amado, the writers João Cordeiro, Dias da Costa, Alves Ribeiro, Edison Carneiro, Valter da Silveira and Clóvis Amorim. In 1927, at the age of 15, he joined the “Diário da Bahia” as a reporter and also wrote for the magazine “A Luva”. At the age of nineteen, he published his first novel, “O País do Carnaval”. By this time he was already in Rio de Janeiro, in contact with important names in literature. In 1939 he was editor-in-chief of the Rio magazine “Dom Casmurro”.

In 1933 he published his second book, “Cacau”. This was followed by several novels about everyday life in the city of Salvador, including “Mar Morto” (1936) and “Capitães de Areia” (1937), which depicts the lives of juvenile delinquents and was banned by the censors of the Estado Novo at the time.

Jorge Amado was married to the writer Zélia Gattai (1916-2008), who began writing his memoirs at the age of 63. He had two children, João Jorge, a sociologist and author of plays for children, and Paloma, a psychologist married to Pedro Costa, an architect. He is the brother of the neuropaediatrician Joelson Amado and the writer James Amado.

He participated in the Popular Front movement of the National Liberation Alliance. He was exiled to Argentina, Uruguay, Paris, Prague and lived in several other countries. He received many awards and honours.

He was a corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences and Letters of the Democratic Republic of Germany, the Lisbon Academy of Sciences, the São Paulo Academy of Letters and a special member of the Bahia Academy of Letters. Jorge Leal Amado de Faria died on 6 August. His wake was held at the Palácio da Acclamação in Salvador. He was cremated at his request and his ashes were placed at the foot of a mango tree at his home in Bahia.

Jorge Amado’s works

• The Land of Carnival, 1931
• Cocoa, 1933
• Sweat, 1934
• Jubiabá, 1935
• Dead Sea, 1936
• Sand Captains, 1937
• Lands of the Endless, 1943
• The Soldier’s Love, 1944
• São Jorge dos Ilhéus, 1944
• Bahia de Todos os Santos, 1944
• Seara Vermelha, 1945
• The World of Peace, 1951
• The Underground of Freedom, 1954
• Gabriela and Cinnamon, 1958
• The Old Sailors, 1961
• The Shepherds of the Night, 1964
• Dona Flor and her two husbands, 1966
• Tent of Miracles, 1969
• Teresa Batista Tired of War, 1972
• Tieta do Agreste, 1977
• Farda Fardão Camisola de Dormir, 1979
• The Grapiúna Boy, 1981
• Tocaia Grande, 1984
• The Disappearance of the Saint: A Story of Witchcraft, 1988
• Cabotage Navigation, 1992
• The discovery of America by the Turks, 1994
• The miracle of the birds, 1997

2. Biography of Tobias Barreto – Sergipe

Tobias Barreto (1839-1889) was a Brazilian philosopher, writer and jurist. He was the leader of the intellectual, poetic, critical, philosophical and legal movement known as the Recife School, which founded the Law Faculty of Recife. Patron of chair no. 38 of the Brazilian Academy of Letters.

Tobias Barreto was born in the village of Campos do Rio Real, now Tobias Barreto, in the state of Sergipe, on 7 June 1839. He was the son of Pedro Barreto de Menezes and Emerenciana Barreto de Menezes. He began his studies in his home town.

In 1861 he moved to Bahia and entered the seminary, but he didn’t fit in and spent only one night there. He moved in with friends in Salvador, where he studied philosophy and preparatory subjects. When his money ran out, he returned to Vila de Campos.

He spent a few years teaching Latin in Itabaiana, Sergipe. In 1863 he moved to Recife to join the Faculty of Law. The atmosphere in the city was very intellectual and dominated by law students. Among the students were Rui Barbosa, Joaquim Nabuco and Castro Alves, who became his friend.

He applied for the post of Latin teacher at the Pernambuco Gymnasium and came second. In 1867 he applied for the post of philosophy teacher at the same school, but was not chosen. Tobias Barreto tried to forget his humble origins, but felt discriminated against because of the colour of his skin.

He tried to marry Leocádia Cavalcanti, but was not accepted by her aristocratic family. He fell in love with Adelaide do Amaral, a married Portuguese artist. He recited verses full of love and had poetic duels with Castro Alves.

He married the daughter of a mill owner and landowner in the town of Escada. After graduating, he lived for ten years in the small town in Pernambuco, in the sugar region. He practised law and was elected to the provincial assembly of Escada. He ran a newspaper in which he printed several books.

His philosophical and scientific contribution was of great importance, since he challenged the general lines of prevailing legal thought and tried to bring philosophy and law together, propagating the studies of Darwin and Haeckel.

Although he lived until the eve of the Republic, he didn’t take part in the republican movements. He returned to Recife, where he began to teach at the Faculty of Law, now known as the “House of Tobias”. Tobias Barreto de Menezes died on 26 June 1889 in Recife, Pernambuco.

Works by Tobias Barreto

• The Genius of Mankind, 1866
• Slavery, 1868
• Essays on Philosophy and Criticism, 1875
• Essay on the Prehistory of German Literature, 1879
• German studies, 1880
• Day and Night, 1881
• Minors and Madmen, 1884
• Speeches, 1887
• Current Issues, 1888
• Controversies, 1901

3. Biography of Lêdo Ivo – Alagoas

Lêdo Ivo (Maceió, AL, 1924) published his first volume of poetry, As Imaginações, in 1944. At the time he was studying law at the National Law School of the University of Brazil, in Rio de Janeiro, RJ. In the following decades he published 5 novels, 14 books of essays on literature and translated poems by Guy de Maupassant, Rimbaud and Dostoevsky.

His book of chronicles, The City and the Days, was published in 1957. He also wrote a novel, The General’s Nephew, published in 1964. His poetry collection Finisterra (1972) won several prizes, including the Jabuti Poetry Prize in 1973.

In 1982, he was awarded the Mário de Andrade Prize for his body of work by the Brazilian Academy of Letters. In 1986, he was elected a member of the Brazilian Academy of Letters. In 1991 he received the Juca Pato Trophy Intellectual of the Year, awarded by the Brazilian Writers’ Union. His poetic works include Cântico (1949), Magias (1960), O Sinal Semafórico (1974), Crepúsculo Viril (1990) and O Rumor da Noite (2000).

Lêdo Ivo’s poetry belongs to the third generation of Modernism. For the critic Carlos Montemayor, “like all the poets of his generation, Lêdo Ivo has a high awareness of language; but his awareness is much broader, an Amazonian awareness that implies not only its involvement but also its liberation, its eruption, its flaming explosions”.

4. Biography of João Cabral de Melo Neto – Pernambuco

João Cabral de Melo Neto (1920-1999) was a Brazilian poet and diplomat, author of Morte e Vida Severina, the dramatic poem that made him famous. He was elected a member of the Brazilian Academy of Letters.

He has received the Poetry Prize from the National Book Institute, the Jabuti Prize from the Brazilian Book Academy and the Brazilian Writers’ Union Prize for his book Crime on Calle Relator.

João Cabral de Melo Neto was born in Recife, Pernambuco. Son of Luís Antônio Cabral de Melo and Carmem Carneiro Leão Cabral de Melo. Brother of the historian Evaldo Cabral de Melo and cousin of the poet Manuel Bandeira and the sociologist Gilberto Freire.

He spent his childhood among his family’s mills in the towns of São Lourenço da Mata and Moreno. He studied at the Colégio Marista in Recife. An avid reader, he read everything he could get his hands on, both at school and at his grandmother’s house.

In 1941, he participated in the First Poetry Congress of Recife, reading the booklet “Reflections on the Sleeping Poet”. In 1942 he published his first collection of poems, Pedra do Sono, in which a vague atmosphere of surrealism and absurdity prevails. After becoming friends with the poet Joaquim Cardoso and the painter Vicente do Rego Monteiro, he moved to Rio de Janeiro.

In 1943 and 1944 he worked for the Rio de Janeiro Department of Personnel Recruitment and Selection. In 1945 he published his second book, The Engineer, financed by the businessman and poet Augusto Frederico Schmidt.

He took his second public examination and entered the diplomatic service in 1947, living in various cities around the world, including Barcelona, London, Seville, Marseille, Geneva, Bern, Asunción, Dakar, among others.

In 1950 he published the poem O Cão Sem Plumas (The Dog Without Feathers) and from then on began to write about social issues. In 1956 he wrote the poem Morte e Vida Severina, which is responsible for his popularity. It’s a Christmas carol in the tradition of medieval carols, using roundels, rhythm and musicality. It was first performed on the stage of the Theatre of the Catholic University of São Paulo (TUCA) in 1966, set to music by Chico Buarque de Holanda.

The poem tells the story of a migrant who moves to the capital to escape the hardships of life in the countryside. In the city, he is faced with a life of hardship and misery.

João Cabral de Melo Neto was married to Stella Maria Barbosa de Oliveira, with whom he had five children. His second marriage was to the poet Marly de Oliveira. He was elected a member of the Brazilian Academy of Letters, as chair number 37, and took office on 6 May 1969. In 1992 he began to suffer from progressive blindness, an illness that led to depression.

João Cabral de Melo Neto died of a heart attack in Rio de Janeiro on 9 October 1999.

Literary awards

• José de Anchieta Prize for Poetry, IV Centenary of São Paulo, 1954.
• Olavo Bilac Prize of the Brazilian Academy of Letters, 1955.
• National Book Institute Poetry Prize, 1993.
• Nestlé Biennial Prize for the body of work.
• Prize of the Brazilian Writers’ Union for Crime in Calle Relator, 1988.

Works by João Cabral de Melo Neto

• Sleeping Stone, 1942
• The Engineer, 1945
• The Psychology of Composition, 1947
• The Dog Without Feathers, 1950
• The River, 1954
• Death and Life of Severine, 1956
• Landscapes with Figures, 1956
• A Single Blade Knife, 1956
• Quaderna, 1960
• Two Parliaments, 1960
• Third Fair, 1961
• Selected Poems, 1963
• Education Through Stone, 1966
• Museum of Everything, 1975
• The School of Knives, 1980
• Critical Poetry, 1982
• Auto do Frade, 1984
• Agrestes, 1985
• Crime in Calle Relator, 1987
• Walking in Seville, 1989

5. Biography of Augusto dos Anjos – Paraíba

Augusto dos An jos (1884-1914) was a Brazilian poet whose work is extremely original. He is considered one of the most critical poets of his time and is considered the most important pre-modernist poet, although his poetry reveals roots in symbolism, a taste for death, anguish and the use of metaphor. He declared himself a “singer of the poetry of all that is dead”.

The technical mastery of his poetry is also evidence of the Parnassian tradition. For a long time he was ignored by critics who found his vocabulary morbid and vulgar. His poetic work is collected in a single book, EU, published in 1912, and republished under the title Eu e Outros Poemas.

Augusto dos Anjos was born on the Pau d’Arco plantation in Paraíba. He was the son of Alexandre Rodrigues dos Anjos and Córdula de Carvalho Rodrigues dos Anjos. He received his first instructions from his father, a lawyer. In 1900 he entered the Liceu Paraibano and wrote his first sonnet, “Saudade”.

Augusto dos Anjos studied at the Recife Law School between 1903 and 1907. After graduating, he returned to João Pessoa, the capital of Paraíba, where he began teaching.

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