LITERATURE-BRAZIL: Amado’s Words Gave a Nation an Identity

By Mario Osava Reprint | | Print |

Mario Osava

RIO DE JANEIRO, Aug 7 2001 (IPS) - Jorge Amado, Brazil’s most popular novelist, died Monday just four days before his 89th birthday, leaving an opus that was known around the world and which helped a country to recognise its unique qualities and culture.

“The characters (Amado) created became as famous as – or more so than – their author. What greater glory can a writer have?” said Brazil’s President Fernando Henrique Cardoso, speaking after receiving news that the writer had died of heart failure in a hospital in Salvador, capital of the northeastern state of Bahía.

Amado penned more than 50 books, many of them translated into dozens of other languages. Among his best-known works internationally are “Gabriela, cravo e canela” (Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon), “Dona Flor e os seus dois maridos” (Doña Flor and Her Two Husbands), “Capitaes da areia” (Captains of the Sands) and “Tieta do Agreste”.

And he was a champion when it came to book sales. The tally cited for Brazil is 21 million copies, but that is just in the last 24 years, because statistics for the previous period are unavailable. When international sales of Amado’s books are counted, the total is thought to surpass 100 million.

Several of his novels were interpreted on the big screen, or served as the basis for Brazilian soap operas, expanding their impact and allowing more and more Brazilians to identify with the Amado’s characters, who covered the spectrum of black, mestizo (mixed race), and olive-skinned, and were poor and often marginalized.

His writing was an important factor in the defence of Brazilian cultural identity, which was increasingly confronted with Hollywood films, with their lavishness and blonde heroes, which led so many Latin Americans to reject the colour of their own skin.

But the literary quality of his writing has come under fire from many critics, who claim Amado was never a great writer, but a good storyteller who made deep concessions to populism, the market and political activism.

At age 19, in 1931, Amado published his first novel, “O país do Carnaval” (Land of Carnival), churning out another five within the decade. From the beginning he revealed his social concerns and his eternal devotion to Bahía-related themes, particularly to the region’s poor.

He joined the Communist Party, which landed him in prison in 1936 and 1937, during the Getulio Vargas dictatorship of 1930- 1945.

In that period, the police seized and burned copies of several of Amado’s books, but especially targeted his “Captains of the Sands”, in which the protagonists are abandoned children living on the streets of Salvador.

With the end of that dictatorship, the writer publicly recognised his communist beliefs and in 1946 was elected to serve on the Constituent Assembly. But a year later he lost the seat when the Communist Part was banned, and he was exiled to Europe, living in Paris and in Prague.

In the 1940s and 1950s he published numerous books that were purely political, such as “O Cavaleiro da esperança” (The Horseman of Hope), a biography of Brazilian communism’s historic leader, Luiz Carlos Prestes. With this work, say critics, the author sacrificed literature and failed to recognise the crimes of Stalinism.

But in 1956 he abandoned political activism, and in 1958 launched a new phase in his literary career with “Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon”, his greatest success.

It is a picaresque novel about the love an Arab immigrant feels for his “cinnamon-coloured” housekeeper and about the political transition in Bahía that occurred with the transformation of rural “colonels” – or bosses – into urban, shrewd and swindling politicians.

Later came “Dona Flor…”, “Tenda dos milagres” (Tent of Miracles), “Tereza Batista” and “Tieta do Agreste” – all replete with sensuality, eroticism, humour and a profound sympathy for society’s poorest.

Amado’s books, whether in print or converted into films or soap operas, crossed international borders, projecting an image of Brazil to the world and feeding the global popularity of his sensual female characters, such as Gabriela, Dona Flor and Tieta.

The oppressed and socially scorned – prostitutes, fisherfolk, dock workers, peasant farmers, blacks and mestizos – are portrayed with a human touch on the pages Amado wrote.

The racial mixture, religious convergence and other cultural traits of Bahía, and of Brazil in general, are among the elements that recur throughout his works.

Amado was to celebrate his 89th birthday Friday. He had suffered health problems since 1993, when he had a heart attack. Diagnosed with diabetes and nearly blind, he was forced into inactivity in recent years. Because he was no longer able to read or write for himself, he fell into depression.

Several hospitalisations marked his suffering, though he never wanted for the support of his wife, fellow writer Zelia Gattai, with whom he lived 56 years and had two children.

Paloma Amado, the novelist’s daughter, and the Jorge Amado Foundation and the Jorge Amado Cultural Centre, two institutions based in Salvador, will uphold the memory of a man who left his indelible imprint on a nation.