Gerardo Melo Mourão Explained

Gerardo Majella Mello Mourão (January 8, 1917 – March 9, 2007) was a Brazilian poet, fictionist, politician, journalist, translator, essayist and biographer, considered a key figure in both the national and all Lusophone literature.

Mello Mourão was widely awarded, competing for the Nobel Prize in Literature by nomination from The State University of New York.[1]

His most famous works are Invention of the Sea, with which he won the Jabuti Prize, and the trilogy Os Peãs. Of this trilogy, Ezra Pound commented:

"In all my work, what I tried to do was write the epic of America. I don't think I could. Who achieved it was the poet of The Country of the Moors".
Mourão was praised and recognized by the likes of Jorge Luis Borges, Antonio Houaiss, Nélida Piñon, Alfredo Bosi, Dora Ferreira da Silva, Wilson Martins and Antônio Cândido.

Carlos Drummond de Andrade defined him as "the great poet of Brazil". His private life was marked by numerous arrests, given his involvement with the ideological movements of the twentieth century. A member of the Integralist Movement, he later became a willing German intelligence agent in Brazil.[2] During the dictatorship of Getúlio Vargas, Mello Mourão was arrested 18 times. Already in the period of the Brazilian military dictatorship, he was taken to the inquiry and tortured, this time on charges of contributing to the Communists.

Works

In Portuguese.

References

  1. Web site: UFSC-NUPILL . UFSC-INE . Digital Library of Literature from Lusophone Countries . 2022-06-28 . www.literaturabrasileira.ufsc.br . pt-br.
  2. Hilton, S. E. (1999). Hitler’s secret war in south America, 1939--1945: German military espionage and allied counterespionage in Brazil. LSU Press.
  3. Book: Mourão, Gerardo Mello . Invenção do Mar : Carmen saeculare . 1997 . Editora Record . 85-01-05022-9 . Rio de Janeiro . 39711191.
  4. Book: Mourão, Gerardo Mello . Cânon & fuga . 1999 . Editora Record . 85-01-05541-7 . Rio de Janeiro . 42881813.
  5. Book: Mourão, Gerardo Mello . Um senador de Pernambuco : breve memória de Antônio de Barros Carvalho . 1999 . Topbooks . 85-86020-94-X . Rio de Janeiro, RJ . 45287239.
  6. Book: Mourão, Gerardo Mello . O bêbado de Deus : vida e milagres de São Gerardo Majella . 2001 . Green Forest do Brasil . 85-86637-21-1 . São Paulo, SP . 50792642.