Born: Ferradas, Itabuna, Bahia, Brazil, 10 August 1912. Education: Educated at the Jesuit Colegio Antonio Vieira, Salvador, 1923-26; entered the Ginasio Ipiranga, Salvador, 1926; Faculty of Law, Federal University, Rio de Janeiro, 1931-35, diploma in law 1935. Family: Married 1) Matilde Garcia Roas in 1933 (separated 1944), one daughter; 2) Zelia Gattai in 1945, one son and one daughter. Career: Reporter, Diario da Bahia, 1927, and contributor, A Luva, Samba, Meridiano, A Semana, O Momento, O Jornal, Diario de Noticias, A Gazeta de Noticias, and O Correiro do Povo, 1927-30; moved to Rio de Janeiro, 1930; editor, Revista Rio Magazine, 1933; worked for Jose Olimpio, from 1934; editor, A Manha the publication of the opposition Alianga Nacional Libertadora [National Freedom Alliance]; co-editor, Centro de Cultura Moderna’s Movimento, 1934-35; imprisoned for suspected involvement in coup attempt,1935, and his books banned, 1938-43; travelled to Mexico and the USA, 1937; editor, Dom Casmurro, 1938-39, and contributor, Diretrizes, 1939; lived mainly in Argentina, 1941-42; returned to Brazil, 1942, and was re-arrested and confined to the Bahia region; contributor, ”Diario da Guerra” column for O Impartial, from 1943; editor, Hoje, Sao Paulo, 1945; after the fall of Getulio Vargas’s regime (1930-45), elected Communist deputy for the Sao Paulo region, 1945, until the Party again declared illegal in 1947; went into exile: in Paris, 1947-49, Scandinavia and Eastern Europe, 1949-50, and Prague, 1950-51; travelled to China and Mongolia, 1952; returned to Brazil, 1952; founder, Para Todos, Rio de Janeiro, and its editor, 1956-58; travelled to Cuba and Mexico, 1962; settled in Salvador, 1963; visited Canada and USA 1971: writer in residence, Pennsylvania State University; lived in London, 1976. Delegate, first Brazilian Writers Congress, 1945; vice-president, Brazilian Union, 1954; co-organizer, first Festival of Brazilian Writing, 1960. Awards: Graga Aranha Foundation prize; Stalin peace prize, 1951; National literary prize, 1958; Gulbenkian prize (Portugal), 1971; Italian Latin-American Institute prize, 1976; Nonnino literary prize (Italy), 1983; Neruda prize, 1989; Volterra prize (Italy), 1989; Sino del Duca prize (Paris), 1990; Mediterranean prize, 1990. Member: Brazilian Academy, since 1961; corresponding member, East German Academy of Science and Letters. Commander, Legion d’honneur, 1984. Died: 6 August 2001, in Salvador, Brazil.
Publications
Fiction
Lenita, with Dias da Costa and Edison Carneiro. 1930.
Opais do carnaval. 1932.
Cacau. 1933.
Suor. 1934; translated as Sweat, 1937.
Jubiaba. 1935; as Jubiaba, translated by Margaret A. Neves, 1984.
Mar morto. 1936; as Sea of Death, translated by Gregory Rabassa, 1984.
Capitaes de areia. 1937; as Captains of the Sands, translated by Gregory Rabassa, 1988.
Terras do sem fim. 1942; as The Violent Land, translated by Samuel Putnam, 1945; revised editions, 1965 and 1989.
Sao Jorge dos Ilheus. 1944.
Seara vermelha. 1946.
Os subterraneos da liberdade: Os asperos tempos, Agonia da noite, A luz no tunel. 3 vols., 1954.
Gabriela, cravo e canela. 1958; as Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon,translated by William L. Grossman and James L. Taylor, 1962.
Os velhos marinheiros: Duas hisodrias de cais de Bahia (includes A morte e a morte de Quincas Berro d’Agua). 1961; A morte e a morte de Quincas Berro d’Agua published separately, 1978; as Home Is the Sailor, translated by Harriet de Onfs, 1964; as The Two Deaths of Quincas Wateryell, translated by Barbara Shelby, 1965.
Os pastores da noite. 1964; as Shepherds of the Night, translated by Harriet de Onfs, 1966.
Dona Flor e seus dois maridos. 1966; as Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands, translated by Harriet de Onfs, 1969.
Tenda dos milagres. 1969; as Tent of Miracles, translated by Barbara Shelby, 1971.
Tereza Batista, cansada de guerra. 1972; as Tereza Batista, Home from the Wars, translated by Barbara Shelby, 1975.
O gato malhado e a andorinha sinha (for children). 1976; as The Swallow and the Tomcat: A Love Story, translated by Barbara Shelby Merello, 1982.
Tieta do Agreste, pastora de cabras. 1977; as Tieta the Goat Girl, translated by Barbara Shelby Merello, 1979.
Farda, fardao, camisola de dormir: Fabula para acender uma esperanga. 1979; as Pen, Sword, Camisole: A Fable to Kindle a Hope, translated by Helen R. Lane, 1985.
Tocaia grande: a face obscura. 1984; as Showdown, translated by Gregory Rabassa, 1988.
O sumigo da santa: Uma historia de feitigaria: Romance baiano. 1988; as The Golden Harvest, translated by Clifford E. Landers, 1992.
A descoberta da America pelos turcos ou come do o arabe Jamil Bichara, desbravador de florestas, de visita a cidade de Itabuna para dar abasto ao corpo, ali lhe ofereceram fartura e casamento ou ainda os esponsais de Adma. 1992.
The War of the Saints, translated by Gregory Rabassa, 1993.
Suor: Romance, 1998.
Verse
A estrada do mar. 1938.
Plays
O amor de Castro Alves. 1947; as O amor do soldado, 1958.
Other
ABC de Castro Alves (biography). 1941.
Vida de Luis Carlos Prestes, o cavaleiro da esperanga (biography). 1942; as O Cavaleiro da Esperanga, 1945.
Obras. 17 vols., 1944-67.
Bahia de todos os santos: Guia das ruas e dos misterios da cidade do Salvador (travel writing). 1945.
Homens e coisas do partido comunista (political writings). 1946.
O mundo da paz (travel writing). 1951.
Obras ilustradas. 19 vols., 1961-72.
O misterio dos MMM, with others. 1962.
Bahia boa terra Bahia, with Carybe and Flavia Damm. 1967,Iconografia dos deuses africanos no Candomble da Bahia, with Pierre Verger and Waldeloir Rego. 1980.
O menino Grapiuna (memoirs). 1982.
A cidade de Bahia, with Carybe, photographs by Mario Cravo Neto. 1984.
Terra magica da Bahia, with Alain Draeger. 1984.
A bola e o goleiro (for children). 1984.
Navegagao de cabotagem. 1992.
Critical Studies:
Brazil’s New Novel: Four Northeastern Masters by Fred P. Ellison, 1954; Escritores Brasileiros Contemporaneos by Renard Perez, 1960; Jorge Amado: Vida e obra (includes bibliography) by Miecio Tati, 1961; ”Poetry and Progress in Jorge Amado’s Gabriela, cravo e canela" by Richard A. Mazzara, in Hispania, 46, 1963; ”The Five Faces of Love in Jorge Amado’s Bahian Novels” by Gregory Rabassa, in Revista de Letras, 1963; Gabriela: seu cravo e sua canela, 1964, Os misterios de vida e os misterios de Dona Flor, 1972, O barroco e o maravilhoso no romance de Jorge Amado, 1973, and A contraprova de Tereza, Favo-de-Mel, 1973, all by Juarez da Gama Batista; ”Narrative Focus in Jorge Amado’s Story of Vasco Moscoso Aragao” by Judith Bernard, in Romance Notes, 8, 1966; ”Afro-Brazilian Cults in the Novels of Jorge Amado” by Russell G. Hamilton, in Hispania, 50(2), 1967; ”The ‘New’ Jorge Amado” by Elizabeth Schlomann Lowe, in Luso-Brazilian Review, 6, 1969; Criaturas de Jorge Amado by Paulo Tavares, 1969; ”Allegory in Two Works of Jorge Amado” and ”Moral Dilemma in Jorge Amado’s Dona Flor e seus dois maridos" both in Romance Notes, 13, 1971, and ”Duality in Jorge Amado’s The Two Deaths of Quincas Wateryell" in Studies in Short Fiction, 15, 1978, all by Malcolm Noel Silverman; ”The Preservation of African Culture in Brazilian Literature: The Novels of Jorge Amado” by Maria Lufsa Nunes, in Luso-Brazilian Review, 10, 1973; ”Popular Poetry in the Novels of Jorge Amado” by Nancy T. Baden, in Journal of Latin American Lore, 2(1), 1976; ”The Malandro, or Rogue Figure, in the Fiction of Jorge Amado” in Mester, 6, 1976, and ”Double Perspective in Two Works of Jorge Amado” in Estudios Iberoamericanos, 4, 1978, both by Bobby J. Chamberlain; ”Jorge Amado, Jorge Desprezado” by Jon S. Vincent, in Luso-Brazilian Review, 15 (supplement), 1978; Jorge Amado: Politica e literatura by Alfredo Wagner Berno de Almeida, 1979; ”The Problem of the Unreliable Narrator in Jorge Amado’s Tenda dos milagres" in Romance Quarterly, 30, 1983, and ”Structural Ambiguity in Jorge Amado’s A morte e a morte de Quincas Berro d’Agua" in Hispania, 67, 1984, both by Earl E. Fitz; ”The Guys and Dolls of Jorge Amado” by L. Clark Keating, in Hispania, 66, 1983; ”Jorge Amado: Morals and Marvels” by Daphne Patai, in her Myth and Ideology in Contemporary Brazilian Fiction, 1983; ”Jorge Amado: Populism and Prejudice” by David Brookshaw, in Race and Color in Brazilian Literature, 1986; Jorge Amado: Retrato Incompleto, 1993; Jorge Amado: Ricette Narrative, 1994; Blackness: Culture, Ideology and Discourse: A Comparative Study by Femi Abodunrin, 1996; Jorge Amado: New Critical Essays, edited by Keith H. Brower, Earl E. Fitz, and Enrique Martinez-Vidal, 2001.
Jorge Amado is described rightly as Brazil’s best-known novelist. An exceedingly prolific writer whose work spanned seven decades, Amado began writing in 1930 and published his first novel, Opais do carnaval [Carnival Country] in 1932; in 1992, the year of his 80th birthday, he published a volume of memoirs, Navegagao de cabotagem [Coastwise Shipping], and a novella, A descoberta da America pelos turcos ou de como o arabe Jamil Bichara, desbravador de florestas, de visita a cidade de Itabuna para dar abasto ao corpo, ali lhe ofereceram fartura e casamento ou ainda os esponsais de Adma [America's Discovery by the Turks, or How the Arab Jamil Bichara, Clearer of Forests, on a Visit to the City of Itabuna to Fortify His Body, Was Offered Abundance and Marriage, or Even the Marriage Vows of Adma], destined to mark the quincentenary of Christopher Columbus’s discovery of America. His works have been translated into some 40 languages, adapted for film, and serialized for television. There is some disagreement among critics about the ”literariness” of his work, but this has affected neither his popularity nor, indeed, his immense readability. Several controversies surround his literary output, and critical opinion is divided as to whether or not his early novels are little more than crude exposees of sociopolitical conditions driven by left-wing ideology, whether he is sexist in his attitude to women, and whether his works, regardless of how well-intentioned, enshrine and perpetrate racist attitudes.
Amado made his literary debut as an exponent of the Northeastern novel, and the greater part of his work has retained this regional bias. Few of his novels do not have as their geographical setting Salvador, capital of Bahia, or the cacao-producing region of Northeastern Brazil.
It is usual to separate Amado’s work into two main phases. The first, stemming, from a strong ideological commitment to depict the Northeastern reality as faithfully as possible, begins with O pais do carnaval and ends with Capitaes da areia (Captains of the Sands). In these novels he chooses as his subject-matter some of the typical motifs of the Northeast: the drought and its effects on the inhabitants of the region; the plight of the hired plantation workers, and the urban poor; the situation of the black man in Brazil. His later works, from Terras do sem fim (The Violent Land) onwards, are characterized by a greater preoccupation with style and technique, incorporating elements of lyricism, humour, irony, and what some critics have tagged ”magical socialism.”
Any attempt to evaluate Amado’s writing must inevitably lead to the conclusion that his major achievement is the group of novels that constitute his ”cacao cycle.” In Cacau, the situation in the Northeast is interpreted very much in terms of the class struggle. Although this work is not an aesthetic success, it introduces the themes that find a fuller, more artistic expression years later in The Violent Land, a ”tropical western” considered by many to be Amado’s best work. It deals with the conquest of the land, when ruthless men cleared the jungle to plant cacao, then fought for political control over their empires. The Violent Land focuses on the bloodthirsty struggle between two such planters, Colonel Horacio Silveira and Juca Badaro. The emphasis is on epic deeds rather than denunciation of social evils, and the main protagonist of the novel is the land itself.
Sao Jorge dos Ilheus [St. George of the Islanders] continues the story told in The Violent Land, with more political content than its predecessor. It chronicles the transition from the pioneering days to the emergence of a new ruling class, the exporters, who employ different means to conquer the land. Whereas Amado views the pioneers with mingled affection and respect, it is clear that he feels a profound antipathy for the new order.
Gabriela, cravo e canela (Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon) takes as its subject the city of Ilheus during the period 1925 to 1926. This is very much a work of Amado’s maturity, and romanticism and humour take precedence over social and political comment. The background of the novel is one of social change, with an ongoing conflict between defenders of the status quo and those who desire progress. Against the backdrop is narrated the love story of Nacib, the son of immigrants, and Gabriela, the picaresque mulata who comes out of the backlands to fuel male fantasies.
In 1984 Amado returned to the early days of the cacao region in Tocaia grande: a face obscura (Showdown), whose tone is predominantly nostalgic.
In his later works, Amado becomes increasingly interested in the art of story-telling, introducing elements of fantasy and popular culture into his novels. He is particularly interested in presenting strong female protagonists who symbolize for him the struggle against exploitation—the most notable being Tereza Batista in Tereza Batista, cansada de guerra (Tereza Batista, Home from the Wars) and Tieta in Tieta do Agreste (Tieta the Goat Girl)—and showing how they overcome adversity by using their sexuality as a weapon. However, as feminist critics have pointed out, the author is not advocating a radical change in the situation of women; rather he tends to emphasize the traditional stereotype of women as dependent on men for emotional and financial security.
The importance of Afro-Brazilian elements in Amado’s work should not be overlooked—for instance, in Jubiaba, Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon, and Tenda dos milagres (Tent of Miracles). In the numerous interviews he has given over the years, Amado has always insisted that Brazilian society, just as Brazilian Portuguese, must be understood as the product of the intermingling of various cultures, religions, and traditions. Thus he makes much of the religious syncretism to be found in the Northeast. It has, however, been suggested that his novels also reinforce white myths about the Afro-Brazilian containing what might be perceived as elements of prejudice.
Amado selects very specific aspects of the Brazilian social reality, focusing on the poor and disadvantaged, on blacks and women, as well as the rich and powerful. He might almost be described as the Master of the Brazilian picaresque, concentrating on the marginal elements of society and recounting their adventures with evident gusto, for instance, the escapades of Vadinho in Dona Flor e seus dois maridos (Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands), or the eponymous Quincas Berro d’Agua (The Two Deaths of Quincas Wateryell).
Amado’s writing derives much of its vigour from oral narrative tradition and his subject matter is unashamedly popular and picturesque. His overall achievement has been to write with exuberance and affection about the region and society he knows best. He will be remembered above all for his rich and creative use of the Brazilian idiom and for the essentially Brazilian characters he has created.
