Jorge Amado, August 10, 1912 - August 6, 2001
Elected to the Brazilian Academy of Letters, Jorge Amado possesses a talent for storytelling as well as a deep concern for social and economic justice. He was born in Bahia, Brazil, in 1912.
Some critics claim that his early works suffer from his politics. Others commonly express reservations concerning Amado's sentimentality and erotico-mythic stereotyping. In the works represented in English translation, his literary merits prevail. The Violent Land (1942) chronicles the development of Brazilian territory and struggles for its resources, memorializing the deeds of those who built the country. Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon (1958), which achieved critical and popular success in both Brazil and the United States, tells a sensual love story of a Syrian bar owner and his beautiful cook. Home Is the Sailor (1962) introduces Captain Vasco Moscoso de Aragao, a comic figure in the tradition of Don Quixote. In Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands (1966), Amado introduced the folk culture of shamans and Yorube gods. The protagonists of Shepherds of the Night (1964) are Bahia's poor.
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