Novelist, born in Ferradas, near Ilhéus, NE Brazil. He spent part of his childhood on a cacao plantation in NE Brazil, and his early writing focused on the poverty and social conditions of the plantation workers. He became a journalist in 1930, was imprisoned for his political beliefs in 1935, and spent several periods in exile. He was elected a Communist deputy of the Brazilian parliament (19467). His novels include Terras do sem-fin (1944, trans The Violent Land), Gabriela, cravo e canela (1958, Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon), and Tenda dos milagres (1969, Tent of Miracles).
Jorge Amado de Faria (August 10, 1912 – August 6, 2001) was a Brazilian writer of the Modernist school. He was the best-known of modern Brazilian writers, his work having been translated into some 30 languages and popularized in film, notably Dona Flor and her Two Husbands (Dona Flor e Seus Dois Maridos) in 1978.
Biography
Amado was born in a fazenda ("farm") in the inland of the city of Itabuna, in the southern part of the Brazilian state of Bahia, son of João Amado de Faria and D. In the large cacao plantation, Amado knew the misery and the struggles of the people working the earth, living in almost slave conditions, which were to be a theme always present in his later works (for example, the notable Terras do Sem Fim of 1944).
Amado published his first novel, O País do Carnaval, in 1931, at age 18. Amado's leftist activities made his life difficult under the dictatorial regime of Getulio Vargas: in 1935 he was arrested for the first time, and two years later his books were publicly burned.
Being a communist militant, from 1941 to 1942 Amado was compelled to go into exile to Argentina and Uruguay.
On his return to Brazil in 1955, Amado abandoned active political life, leaving the Communist Party one year later: from that period on he dedicated himself solely to literature. His second creative phase began in 1958 with Gabriela, Cravo e Canela, which was described by Jean-Paul Sartre as "the best example of a folk novel": Amado abandoned, in part, the realism and the social themes of his early works, producing a series of novels focusing mainly on feminine characters, devoted to a kind of smiling celebration of the traditions and the beauties of Bahia. His depiction of the sexual customs of his land was much to the scandal of the 1950s Brazilian society: for several years Amado could not even enter Ilhéus, where the novel was set, due to threats received for the alleged offense to the morality of the city's women.
On April 6, 1961 he was elected to the Brazilian Academy of Literature.
Amado's popularity as a writer never decreased.
In 1987, the House of Jorge Amado Foundation was created, in Salvador.
Amado died on August 6, 2001.
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