Heloísa dos Reis Maranhão (1925 – 15 December 2014) was a Brazilian novelist, playwright and short-story writer.

Life and career

Heloísa Maranhão was born in

Rio de Janeiro Rio de Janeiro ( , , ; literally 'River of January'), or simply Rio, is the capital of the state of the same name, Brazil's third-most populous state, and the second-most populous city in Brazil, after São Paulo. Listed by the GaWC as a b ...

in 1925. She is a descendant of the 16th-century colonial governor Jeronimo de Albuquerque. She received a classical education, at a French-speaking boarding school run by nuns, before graduating in law from the

University of Brasília The University of Brasília ( pt, Universidade de Brasília, UnB) is a federal public university in Brasília, the capital of Brazil. It was founded in 1960 and has since consistently been named among the top five Brazilian universities and the ...

. She worked as a translator and radio producer and teacher of theater. To maintain her freedom, she never married and lived for many years with her sister. In the 1950s and 1960s, Heloísa wrote

experimental theater Experimental theatre (also known as avant-garde theatre), inspired largely by Wagner's concept of Gesamtkunstwerk, began in Western theatre in the late 19th century with Alfred Jarry and his Ubu plays as a rejection of both the age in particular ...

. ''Castelo interior & moradas'' (1978) contained poems linked intertextually to ancient religious texts. Her first novel, ''Lucrezia'' (1979), was set in Renaissance Rome, fusing historical figures in the character of

Lucrezia Borgia Lucrezia Borgia (; ca-valencia, Lucrècia Borja, links=no ; 18 April 1480 – 24 June 1519) was a Spanish-Italian noblewoman of the House of Borgia who was the daughter of Pope Alexander VI and Vannozza dei Cattanei. She reigned as the Govern ...

. ''Florinda'' (1982), in which a murder is announced to be committed during a theatrical performance, crossed genre boundaries. In ''Dona Leonor Teles'' (1985), a woman with delusions of being 14th-century queen

Leonor Teles Leonor Teles (or Teles de Meneses; ) was queen consort of Portugal by marriage to King Ferdinand I, and one of the protagonists, along with her brothers and her daughter Beatrice, of the events that led to the succession crisis of 1383–1385 ...

is hospitalized. ''A Rainha de Navarra'' (1986) follows a woman dressed as a queen of Navarre for a samba performance, who believes she is the queen after waking from a faint. ''Adriana'' (1990) adopts the perspective of a ten-year-old girl. Her last novel, ''Rosa Maria Egipcíaca da Vera Cruz'' (1997), follows a writer sequestered in her bedroom with a 17th-century African slave. The writer is engaged in writing a novel about the slave,

Rosa Egipcíaca Rosa Egipcíaca, also known as Rosa Maria Egipcíaca of Vera Cruz and Rosa Courana (1719 – 12 October 1771), was a formerly enslaved writer and religious mystic, who was the author of '' A Sagrada Teologia do Amor de Deus Luz Brilhante das Almas ...

, which comes to encompass the entire

history of Brazil The history of Brazil begins with indigenous people in Brazil. Europeans arrived in Brazil at the ending of the 15th century. The first European to claim sovereignty over Indigenous lands part of what is now the territory of the Federative Republ ...

. Maranhão was a member of the Pen Club of Brazil. She died on 15 December 2014.

Works

* ''Paixão da terra''. 1958. * ''Negra Bá: peça de teatro''. 1959. * ''Castelo interior & moradas''. 1978. * ''Lucrécia: romance''. 1979. * ''Florinda : romance policial ... com mistério''. 1982. * ''Dona Leonor Teles: romance''. 1985. * ''A rainha de Navarra: romance''. 1986. * ''Adriana: romance''. 1989. * ''Rosa Maria Egipcíaca da Vera Cruz: a incrível trajetória de uma princesa negra entre a prostituição e a santidade''. 1997.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Maranhao, Heloisa 1925 births 2014 deaths University of Brasília alumni Brazilian novelists Brazilian women novelists Brazilian dramatists and playwrights Brazilian women dramatists and playwrights Brazilian short story writers Brazilian women short story writers Writers from Rio de Janeiro (city)