Érico Lopes Verissimo (December 17, 1905 – November 28, 1975) was an important Brazilian writer, born in the State of

Rio Grande do Sul Rio Grande do Sul (, , ; "Great River of the South") is a Federative units of Brazil, state in the South Region, Brazil, southern region of Brazil. It is the Federative_units_of_Brazil#List, fifth-most-populous state and the List of Brazilian st ...

Biography

Érico Verissimo was the son of Sebastião Verissimo da Fonseca and Abegahy Lopes Verissimo. His father, heir of a rich family in Cruz Alta, met financial ruin during his son's youth and, as a result, Erico didn't complete

secondary school A secondary school describes an institution that provides secondary education and also usually includes the building where this takes place. Some secondary schools provide both '' secondary education, lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) ...

because of the need to work. Verissimo settled in Cruz Alta as the owner of a drugstore, but was unsuccessful. He then moved to Porto Alegre in 1930, willing to live solely by selling his writing. There he began to live around writers of renown, such as Mário Quintana, Augusto Meyer, Guilhermino César and others. In the following year, he was hired to occupy the position of secretary of edition of the '' Revista do Globo'', of which he would become editor in 1933. He then undertook the whole editorial project at Editora Globo, propelling its nationwide fame. He published his first work, ''Fantoches'' ("Puppets"), in 1932, with a sequence of short stories, mostly in the form of short plays. The following year, he saw his first great success with the romance ''Clarissa''. Verissimo married in 1931 to Mafalda Volpe and had two children,

Luis Fernando Verissimo Luís Fernando Verissimo (born September 26, 1936) is a Brazilian writer. Verissimo is the son of Brazilian writer Erico Verissimo and lived with his father in the United States during his childhood. Best known for his ''crônicas'' and texts o ...

, also a writer, and Clarissa. In 1943 he moved with his family to the United States, where he gave lessons on Brazilian Literature in the University of California-Berkeley, until 1945. Between 1953 and 1956 he was director of the Department of Cultural Affairs of the

Organization of American States The Organization of American States (OAS; es, Organización de los Estados Americanos, pt, Organização dos Estados Americanos, french: Organisation des États américains; ''OEA'') is an international organization that was founded on 30 April ...

, in Washington, D.C. This period of his life was recorded in some of his books, including: ''Gato Preto em Campo de Neve'' ("Black Cat in a Snow Field"), ''A Volta do Gato Preto'' ("The Return of the Black Cat"), and ''História da Literatura Brasileira'' ("History of Brazilian Literature"), which contains some of his lectures at UCLA. His epic '' O Tempo e o Vento'' ("The Time and the Wind'") became one of the great masterpieces of the Brazilian novel, alongside '' Os Sertões'' by Euclides da Cunha, and '' Grande Sertão: Veredas'' by Guimarães Rosa. His historical trilogy '' O Tempo e o Vento'' ("The Time and the Wind") is considered as his greatest work, written in the period of 1949-1961, from which arose primordial characters such as ''Ana Terra'' and ''Capitão Rodrigo'' that went on to become popular amongst his readers. Four of his, ''Time and the Wind'', ''Night'', ''Mexico'', and ''

His Excellency, the Ambassador ''O Senhor Embaixador'' (''His Excellency, the Ambassador'') is a novel by Erico Verissimo, about the history of the fictional Republic of Sacramento. The story focuses mainly on the staff of the Sacramentese embassy in Washington, showing the li ...

'', were translated into the English language by

Linton Lomas Barrett Linton Lomas Barrett, Ph.D. (1 September 1904 – 8 March 1972) was an influential educator, administrator, diplomat, editor, Hispanist and translator of Romance languages. Life Barrett was born in Lanett, Alabama, the son of Linton Stephe ...

. In 1965 Verissimo published the romance ''O Senhor Embaixador'' ("His Excellency, the Ambassador"), in which he reflected upon the deviations of Latin America. In the romance ''Incidente em Antares'' ("Incident in Antares"), written in 1971, he traces a parallel with Brazilian politics with the use of fantasy, with the rebellion of corpses during a strike of the gravekeepers, in the fictitious city of Antares. After suffering from a heart attack in 1975, Verissimo was unable to complete the second volume of his

autobiography An autobiography, sometimes informally called an autobio, is a self-written account of one's own life. It is a form of biography. Definition The word "autobiography" was first used deprecatingly by William Taylor in 1797 in the English peri ...

entitled ''Solo de Clarineta'' ("Clarinet Solo"), which was intended to be a trilogy, apart from a romance which would be entitled ''A Hora do Sétimo Anjo'' ("The Hour of the Seventh Angel"). He was the father of another famous writer of Rio Grande do Sul,

Works

His works have been compiled on three occasions: *''Obras de Erico Verissimo'' ("Works of Érico Veríssimo") – 1956 (17 volumes) *''Obras completas'' ("Complete Works") – 1961 (10 volumes) *''Ficção completa'' ("Complete Fiction")– 1966 (5 volumes) Érico Verissimo's books have been translated to German, Spanish, Finnish, French, Dutch, Hungarian, Indonesian, English, Italian, Japanese, Norwegian, Romanian, Russian and Czech. Short stories *''Fantoches'' ("Puppets") *''As mãos de meu filho'' ("My Son's Hands") *''O ataque'' ("The Attack") *''Os devaneios do general'' ("The reveries of the general") Novels *''Clarissa'' – 1933 *''Caminhos Cruzados'' ("Crossed Paths") – 1935 *''Música ao Longe'' ("Music From Afar") – 1936 *''Um Lugar ao Sol'' ("A Place in the Sun")– 1936 *''Olhai os Lírios do Campo'' ("Behold the Lilies of the Field")– 1938 *''Saga'' – 1940 *''O Resto É Silêncio, '' ("The Rest is Silence") – 1943 *'' O Tempo e o Vento'' (The Time and the Wind"): **''O continente'' ("The Continent") – 1949 **''O Retrato'' ("The Portrait") – 1951 **''O Arquipélago ("The Archipelago") – 1961 *''

Noite Noite (''Night'') is a novel, written by the famed Brazilian writer Érico Veríssimo in 1954. Plot summary In the 1950s, a man finds himself in the middle of the streets of Porto Alegre with a wallet full of money... and no memory of any past ...

'' ("Night") - 1954 (the versions published in Portugal contain also "A Sonata" ("The Sonata"), a short story written by a solitary music teacher, that sees himself transported to the past, to the year of his birth, where he falls in love for a beautiful woman) *''

O Senhor Embaixador ''O Senhor Embaixador'' (''His Excellency, the Ambassador'') is a novel A novel is a relatively long work of narrative fiction, typically written in prose and published as a book. The present English word for a long work of prose fiction de ...

'' ("His Majesty, the Ambassador") – 1965 *''O Prisoneiro'' ("The Prisoner") – 1967 *''Incidente em Antares'' ("Incident in Antares") – 1971 Children's literature *''A vida de Joana d'Arc'' – 1935 *'' As Aventuras do Avião Vermelho'' – 1936 *''Os Três Porquinhos Pobres'' – 1936 *''Rosa Maria no Castelo Encantado'' – 1936 *''Meu ABC'' – 1936 *''As Aventuras de Tibicuera'' – 1937 *''O Urso com Música na Barriga'' – 1938 *''A Vida do Elefante Basílio'' – 1939 *''Outra vez os três porquinhos'' – 1939 *''Viagem à aurora do mundo'' – 1939 *''Aventuras no mundo da higiene'' – 1939 *''Gente e bichos'' – 1956 Travel literature *''Gato Preto em Campo de Neve'' – 1941 *''A Volta do Gato Preto'' – 1946 *''México'' – 1957 *''Israel em Abril'' – 1969 Autobiographies *''O escritor diante do espelho'' – 1966 (in "Ficção Completa") *''Solo de Clarineta'' – Memórias (Volume I) – 1973 *''Solo de clarineta'' – Memórias (Volume II) – 1976 (posthumous edition, organized by Flávio L. Chaves) Essays *''Brazilian Literature: an Outline'' – 1945 *''Mundo velho sem porteira'' – 1973 *''Breve história da literatura brasileira'' Biographies *''Um certo Henrique Bertaso'' – 1972 Translations :Novels *''The Ringer'', by Edgar Wallace – 1931 *''The Crimson Circle'', by Edgar Wallace – 1931 *''The Door with Seven Locks'', by Edgar Wallace – 1931 *''Jahrgang 1902'', by Ernst Glaeser – 1933 *'' Point Counter Point'', by Aldous Huxley – 1934 *'' Kleiner Mann, Was nun?'', by

Hans Fallada Hans Fallada (; born Rudolf Wilhelm Friedrich Ditzen; 21 July 18935 February 1947) was a German writer of the first half of the 20th century. Some of his better known novels include '' Little Man, What Now?'' (1932) and ''Every Man Dies Alone'' ...

– 1937 *'' We Are Not Alone'', by James Hilton – 1940 *'' Goodbye Mr. Chips'', by James Hilton – 1940 *'' Of Mice and Men'', by

John Steinbeck John Ernst Steinbeck Jr. (; February 27, 1902 – December 20, 1968) was an American writer and the 1962 Nobel Prize in Literature winner "for his realistic and imaginative writings, combining as they do sympathetic humor and keen social ...

– 1940 *'' Portrait of Jennie'', by Robert Nathan – 1942 *'' They Shoot Horses, Don't They?'', by Horace McCoy – 1947 *''Then and Now'', by Somerset Maugham – 1948 *''The Clue of the New Pin''), by Edgar Wallace – 1956 :Short Stories *'' ''Psychology'''', by Katherine Mansfield – 1939 (Revista do Globo) *'' Bliss'', by Katherine Mansfield – 1940 *'' Her First Ball'', by Katherine Mansfield – 1940 (Revista do Globo)

References

External links

The Rise of Modern Literature in Southern Brazil
{{DEFAULTSORT:Verissimo, Erico 1905 births 1975 deaths People from Rio Grande do Sul Culture in Rio Grande do Sul Brazilian people of Italian descent Brazilian people of Portuguese descent Brazilian agnostics Brazilian male novelists Brazilian male short story writers Brazilian translators Brazilian essayists English–Portuguese translators 20th-century translators 20th-century Brazilian novelists 20th-century Brazilian short story writers 20th-century essayists 20th-century Brazilian male writers