Graciliano Ramos
Encyclopedia
Graciliano Ramos de Oliveira (October 27, 1892 — March 20, 1953) was a Brazil
ian Post-Modernist writer, politician and journalist. In most of his novels (more proeminently in Vidas Secas
) he depicts the precarious situation of the poor inhabitants of the Brazilian sertão
.
, in the Brazilian State of Alagoas
, in October 27, 1892, to Sebastião Ramos de Oliveira and Maria Amélia Ramos. Graciliano was the oldest of the couple's 16 children.
He would spend most part of his childhood travelling through different cities of Northeast Brazil
. After finishing high school in Maceió
, he became a collaborator of the newspaper Jornal de Alagoas in 1909, where he published a sonnet
called "Céptico" under the pen name Almeida Cunha, and some other texts under many different pseudonyms. He also published texts in the magazine O Malho, under the pen name Feliciano de Olivença, and founded a short-lived periodical named Echo Viçosense in 1906.
In 1914, he moved to Rio de Janeiro
, but had to return to the State of Alagoas in September 1915, in order to live with his father, who became a merchant in the city of Palmeira dos Índios
. Also in 1915, he married his first wife, Maria Augusta de Barros, having with her four children. Maria Augusta died in 1920, due to troubles during childbirth.
In 1927, Ramos was elected mayor of Palmeira dos Índios
: he took office in 1928 and would abdicate his post in 1930. Mesmerized by the high literary quality of his prefecture reports, Augusto Frederico Schmidt would approach Ramos into publishing his first novel, Caetés, that Ramos started to write circa 1925. He would finish Caetés in 1930, but did not publish it until 1933. In 1928, he married his second wife, Heloísa Leite de Medeiros, having with her more four children.
From 1930 to 1936 he lived once again in Maceió. In 1934 he published the novel São Bernardo, and in the following year, he was arrested due to alleged participation in the Communist Revolt of 1935. (Graciliano wrote an account of his time in prison named Memórias do Cárcere
, published posthumously in 1953
.) After being freed from the prison, he publishes with the help of associates (such as José Lins do Rego
) his most famous novel, Angústia
.
In 1938 he publishes Vidas Secas
and moves definitely to Rio de Janeiro, where he became in 1945 a member of the Partido Comunista do Brasil. In the subsequent years, he travelled alongside his wife to countries such as France
, Portugal
, the Soviet Union
and Czechoslovakia
. Also in 1945 he published an account of his childhood years, named Infância.
Circa 1952, Graciliano's health gradually began to worse. After an unsuccessful surgery, he was diagnosed with lung cancer
and died on March 20, 1953. His wife Heloísa would die 46 years later, in Salvador
, Bahia
.
Graciliano is survived by one daughter and many grandsons and great-grandsons.
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
ian Post-Modernist writer, politician and journalist. In most of his novels (more proeminently in Vidas Secas
Vidas Secas
Vidas Secas is a novel by twentieth-century Brazilian writer Graciliano Ramos, written in 1938...
) he depicts the precarious situation of the poor inhabitants of the Brazilian sertão
Sertão
In Portuguese, the word sertão first referred to the vast hinterlands of Asia that Lusitanian explorers encountered. In Brazil, the geographical term referred to backlands away from the Atlantic coastal regions where the Portuguese first settled in South America in the early sixteenth century...
.
Life
Graciliano Ramos de Oliveira was born in the city of QuebranguloQuebrangulo
Quebrangulo is a municipality located in the Brazilian state of Alagoas. Its population was 12,215 and its area is 300 km²....
, in the Brazilian State of Alagoas
Alagoas
Alagoas is one of the 27 federative units of Brazil and is situated in the eastern part of the Northeast Region. It borders: Pernambuco ; Sergipe ; Bahia ; and the Atlantic Ocean . It occupies an area of 27,767 km², being slightly larger than Haiti...
, in October 27, 1892, to Sebastião Ramos de Oliveira and Maria Amélia Ramos. Graciliano was the oldest of the couple's 16 children.
He would spend most part of his childhood travelling through different cities of Northeast Brazil
Northeast Region, Brazil
The Northeast Region of Brazil is composed of the following states: Maranhão, Piauí, Ceará, Rio Grande do Norte, Paraíba, Pernambuco, Alagoas, Sergipe and Bahia, and it represents 18.26% of the Brazilian territory....
. After finishing high school in Maceió
Maceió
Maceió is the capital and the largest city of the coastal state Alagoas, Brazil. The name "maceió" is of Indian origin, and designates the natural spontaneously courses of water which flow out of the soil...
, he became a collaborator of the newspaper Jornal de Alagoas in 1909, where he published a sonnet
Sonnet
A sonnet is one of several forms of poetry that originate in Europe, mainly Provence and Italy. A sonnet commonly has 14 lines. The term "sonnet" derives from the Occitan word sonet and the Italian word sonetto, both meaning "little song" or "little sound"...
called "Céptico" under the pen name Almeida Cunha, and some other texts under many different pseudonyms. He also published texts in the magazine O Malho, under the pen name Feliciano de Olivença, and founded a short-lived periodical named Echo Viçosense in 1906.
In 1914, he moved to Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro , commonly referred to simply as Rio, is the capital city of the State of Rio de Janeiro, the second largest city of Brazil, and the third largest metropolitan area and agglomeration in South America, boasting approximately 6.3 million people within the city proper, making it the 6th...
, but had to return to the State of Alagoas in September 1915, in order to live with his father, who became a merchant in the city of Palmeira dos Índios
Palmeira dos Índios
Palmeira dos Índios is a municipality located in the western of the Brazilian state of Alagoas. , it has a population of around 70,000.The city is situated on Alagoas backwood region. Brazilian writer, Graciliano Ramos, was its mayor in 1927. It is the seat of the Roman Catholic Diocese of...
. Also in 1915, he married his first wife, Maria Augusta de Barros, having with her four children. Maria Augusta died in 1920, due to troubles during childbirth.
In 1927, Ramos was elected mayor of Palmeira dos Índios
Palmeira dos Índios
Palmeira dos Índios is a municipality located in the western of the Brazilian state of Alagoas. , it has a population of around 70,000.The city is situated on Alagoas backwood region. Brazilian writer, Graciliano Ramos, was its mayor in 1927. It is the seat of the Roman Catholic Diocese of...
: he took office in 1928 and would abdicate his post in 1930. Mesmerized by the high literary quality of his prefecture reports, Augusto Frederico Schmidt would approach Ramos into publishing his first novel, Caetés, that Ramos started to write circa 1925. He would finish Caetés in 1930, but did not publish it until 1933. In 1928, he married his second wife, Heloísa Leite de Medeiros, having with her more four children.
From 1930 to 1936 he lived once again in Maceió. In 1934 he published the novel São Bernardo, and in the following year, he was arrested due to alleged participation in the Communist Revolt of 1935. (Graciliano wrote an account of his time in prison named Memórias do Cárcere
Memórias do Cárcere
Memórias do Cárcere may refer to:*Memórias do Cárcere is a book by Camilo Castelo Branco in 1862;*Memórias do Cárcere is a book by Graciliano Ramos in 1953;*Memórias do Cárcere is a film by Nelson Pereira dos Santos in 1984....
, published posthumously in 1953
1953 in literature
The year 1953 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:* January 22 - The Crucible, a drama by Arthur Miller, opens on Broadway....
.) After being freed from the prison, he publishes with the help of associates (such as José Lins do Rego
José Lins do Rego
José Lins do Rego Cavalcanti was a Brazilian novelist most known for his semi-autobiographical "sugarcane cycle." These novels were the basis of films that had distribution in the English speaking world...
) his most famous novel, Angústia
Angústia
Angústia is a book by Graciliano Ramos that tells the life of Luís da Silva, a man very confused with his own life.One day, he meets Marina, his new neighbour, a beautiful girl with whom he falls in love...
.
In 1938 he publishes Vidas Secas
Vidas Secas
Vidas Secas is a novel by twentieth-century Brazilian writer Graciliano Ramos, written in 1938...
and moves definitely to Rio de Janeiro, where he became in 1945 a member of the Partido Comunista do Brasil. In the subsequent years, he travelled alongside his wife to countries such as France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, Portugal
Portugal
Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
, the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
and Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
. Also in 1945 he published an account of his childhood years, named Infância.
Circa 1952, Graciliano's health gradually began to worse. After an unsuccessful surgery, he was diagnosed with lung cancer
Lung cancer
Lung cancer is a disease characterized by uncontrolled cell growth in tissues of the lung. If left untreated, this growth can spread beyond the lung in a process called metastasis into nearby tissue and, eventually, into other parts of the body. Most cancers that start in lung, known as primary...
and died on March 20, 1953. His wife Heloísa would die 46 years later, in Salvador
Salvador, Bahia
Salvador is the largest city on the northeast coast of Brazil and the capital of the Northeastern Brazilian state of Bahia. Salvador is also known as Brazil's capital of happiness due to its easygoing population and countless popular outdoor parties, including its street carnival. The first...
, Bahia
Bahia
Bahia is one of the 26 states of Brazil, and is located in the northeastern part of the country on the Atlantic coast. It is the fourth most populous Brazilian state after São Paulo, Minas Gerais and Rio de Janeiro, and the fifth-largest in size...
.
Graciliano is survived by one daughter and many grandsons and great-grandsons.
Novels
- Caetés (19331933 in literatureThe year 1933 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:* February 17 - The magazine Newsweek is published for the first time.* James Joyce's Ulysses is allowed into United States.-New books:...
) - São Bernardo (19341934 in literatureThe year 1934 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:* The first Flash Gordon comic strip is published.*Boris Pasternak and Korney Chukovsky are among those present at the first Congress of the Soviet Union of Writers....
) - AngústiaAngústiaAngústia is a book by Graciliano Ramos that tells the life of Luís da Silva, a man very confused with his own life.One day, he meets Marina, his new neighbour, a beautiful girl with whom he falls in love...
(Anguish) (19361936 in literatureThe year 1936 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:* Life magazine is first published.* The Carnegie Medal for excellence in children's literature is established in the UK.-New books:...
) - Vidas SecasVidas SecasVidas Secas is a novel by twentieth-century Brazilian writer Graciliano Ramos, written in 1938...
(Barren Lives) (19381938 in literatureThe year 1938 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:* The trilogy, U.S.A. by John Dos Passos, is published containing his three novels The 42nd Parallel , 1919 , and The Big Money ....
) - Brandão entre o Mar e o Amor (Brandão Between the Sea and Love) (19421942 in literatureThe year 1942 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*André Gide leaves France to live in Tunis.*Robertson Davies becomes editor of the Peterborough Examiner.*Thomas Mann emigrates to California....
— written in partnership with Jorge AmadoJorge AmadoJorge Leal Amado de Faria was a Brazilian writer of the Modernist school. He was the best-known of modern Brazilian writers, his work having been translated into some 49 languages and popularized in film, notably Dona Flor and her Two Husbands in 1978...
, José Lins do RegoJosé Lins do RegoJosé Lins do Rego Cavalcanti was a Brazilian novelist most known for his semi-autobiographical "sugarcane cycle." These novels were the basis of films that had distribution in the English speaking world...
, Aníbal MachadoAníbal MachadoAníbal Machado is a Brazilian writer born in Sabará, Minas Gerais. He was president of the Brazilian Association of Writers and received numerous awards for his novels. He was also honored by the Academia Brasileira de Letras. He is the father of playwright Maria Clara Machado.-External links:...
and Rachel de QueirozRachel de QueirozRachel de Queiroz was a Brazilian author and journalist....
)
Children's literature
- A Terra dos Meninos Pelados (The Naked Boys' Land) (novel — 19391939 in literatureThe year 1939 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*December 25 - A Christmas Carol is read before a radio audience for the first time....
) - Histórias de Alexandre (Alexandre's Stories) (short story book — 19441944 in literatureThe year 1944 in literature involved some significant new books.-New books:*Samuel Hopkins Adams – Canal Town*Jorge Amado – Terras do Sem Fim *Saul Bellow – Dangling Man*Jorge Luis Borges – Fictions...
) - Alexandre e Outros Heróis (Alexandre and Other Heroes) (posthumous — 19621962 in literatureThe year 1962 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*January 7 - In an article in the New York Times Book Review, Gore Vidal calls Evelyn Waugh "our time's first satirist."...
)
Short story books
- Histórias Incompletas (Unfinished Stories) (19461946 in literatureThe year 1946 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*November 7 - Walker Percy marries Mary Bernice Townsend.*Launch in the United Kingdom of Penguin Classics under the editorship of E. V...
) - Insônia (Insomnia) (19471947 in literatureThe year 1947 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*The Diary of Anne Frank is published for the first time.*Jack Kerouac makes the journey which he will later chronicle in his book On the Road....
)
Memoirs
- Infância (19451945 in literatureThe year 1945 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*November 1 - The magazine Ebony is published for the first time.*Noel Coward's short play, Still Life, is adapted to become the film, Brief Encounter....
) - Memórias do CárcereMemórias do CárcereMemórias do Cárcere may refer to:*Memórias do Cárcere is a book by Camilo Castelo Branco in 1862;*Memórias do Cárcere is a book by Graciliano Ramos in 1953;*Memórias do Cárcere is a film by Nelson Pereira dos Santos in 1984....
(Memories from Incarceration) (posthumous, unfinished — 19531953 in literatureThe year 1953 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:* January 22 - The Crucible, a drama by Arthur Miller, opens on Broadway....
) - Viagem (Travel) (posthumous — 19541954 in literatureThe year 1954 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*Jack Kerouac reads Dwight Goddard's A Buddhist Bible, which will influence him greatly.*John Updike graduates from Harvard with a thesis on George Herbert....
) - Viventes das Alagoas (Living People from Alagoas) (posthumous — 19621962 in literatureThe year 1962 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*January 7 - In an article in the New York Times Book Review, Gore Vidal calls Evelyn Waugh "our time's first satirist."...
)
Chronicles
- Linhas Tortas (Squiggly Lines) (posthumous — 19621962 in literatureThe year 1962 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*January 7 - In an article in the New York Times Book Review, Gore Vidal calls Evelyn Waugh "our time's first satirist."...
)
Translations
- Up from SlaveryUp From SlaveryUp from Slavery is the 1901 autobiography of Booker T. Washington detailing his slow and steady rise from a slave child during the Civil War, to the difficulties and obstacles he overcame to get an education at the new Hampton University, to his work establishing vocational schools—most notably the...
by Booker T. WashingtonBooker T. WashingtonBooker Taliaferro Washington was an American educator, author, orator, and political leader. He was the dominant figure in the African-American community in the United States from 1890 to 1915... - The PlagueThe PlagueThe Plague is a novel by Albert Camus, published in 1947, that tells the story of medical workers finding solidarity in their labour as the Algerian city of Oran is swept by a plague. It asks a number of questions relating to the nature of destiny and the human condition...
by Albert CamusAlbert CamusAlbert Camus was a French author, journalist, and key philosopher of the 20th century. In 1949, Camus founded the Group for International Liaisons within the Revolutionary Union Movement, which was opposed to some tendencies of the Surrealist movement of André Breton.Camus was awarded the 1957...
Film adaptations
Graciliano had three of his novels adapted into cinema:- Vidas SecasVidas Secas (film)Vidas Secas is a 1963 Brazilian drama film directed by Nelson Pereira dos Santos, and based on the 1938 novel of the same name by Graciliano Ramos. The title means "barren lives", but the film is normally released under its original Portuguese title...
, a 19631963 in filmThe year 1963 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* June 12 - Cleopatra starring Elizabeth Taylor, Rex Harrison and Richard Burton premieres at the Rivoli Theatre in New York City....
film directed by Nelson Pereira dos Santos. - São Bernardo, a 19711971 in filmThe year 1971 in film involved some significant events.-Events:*February 8 - Bob Dylan's hour long documentary film, Eat the Document, premieres at New York's Academy of Music...
film by Leon Hirszman. - Memórias do Cárcere, a 19841984 in film-Events:* The Walt Disney Company founds Touchstone Pictures to release movies with subject matter deemed inappropriate for the Disney name.* Tri-Star Pictures, a joint venture of Columbia Pictures, HBO, and CBS, releases its first film....
film also directed by Nelson Pereira dos Santos. Carlos VerezaCarlos VerezaCarlos Alberto Vereza de Almeida is a Brazilian actor.-Television appearances:Vereza has played recurring roles in various Brazilian telenovelas, including:* 2006 Sinhá Moça - Augusto* 2004/05 Começar de Novo - Ademar...
portrayed Graciliano Ramos in this film.