''The Knight of Hope'' or ''The Life of Luis Carlos Prestes'' (

Portuguese Portuguese may refer to: * anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal ** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods ** Portuguese language, a Romance language *** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language ** Portu ...

: ''O Cavaleiro da Esperança'' ''ou Vida de Luis Carlos Prestes'') is a 1942 book by

Jorge Amado Jorge Leal Amado de Faria (10 August 1912 – 6 August 2001) was a Brazilian writer of the modernist school. He remains the best known of modern Brazilian writers, with his work having been translated into some 49 languages and popularized in ...

, a

biography A biography, or simply bio, is a detailed description of a person's life. It involves more than just the basic facts like education, work, relationships, and death; it portrays a person's experience of these life events. Unlike a profile or ...

of the well-known

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

ian revolutionary

Luis Carlos Prestes Luis is a given name. It is the Spanish form of the originally Germanic name or . Other Iberian Romance languages have comparable forms: (with an accent mark on the i) in Portuguese and Galician, in Aragonese and Catalan, while is archaic ...

. It has not been published in English. ''The Knight of Hope'' salutes the heroism of Prestes. In 1924 he set out on a 25,000 kilometer march that became known as the Prestes Column. In 1935 he founded the National Liberation Alliance and led the so-called "Communist Conspiracy". He was imprisoned in 1936 by the

Getúlio Vargas Getúlio Dornelles Vargas (; 19 April 1882 – 24 August 1954) was a Brazilian lawyer and politician who served as the 14th and 17th president of Brazil, from 1930 to 1945 and from 1951 to 1954. Due to his long and controversial tenure as Brazi ...

dictatorship, along with his pregnant wife. The book expresses considerable support for Prestes's positions and indeed admiration for his person. As Amado observed, the book was written “with passion, about someone who is loved”. However, one critic has argued that Amado’s estimate of the significance of Prestes is somewhat exaggerated, while admitting that the biography "is useful testimony to the relation between art and political life". Amado himself suffered censorship and political persecution under Brazil’s Estado Novo regime (1937-45). He was imprisoned in both 1936 and 1937, accused of being a Communist and a subversive. In 1937, copies of his various works were burned in a public square in Salvador along with those of others. He decided to write Prestes’ biography in 1941 to campaign for the release of the revolutionary leader, who was still in prison. The book was written in

Buenos Aires Buenos Aires ( or ; ), officially the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires ( es, link=no, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires), is the capital and primate city of Argentina. The city is located on the western shore of the Río de la Plata, on South ...

and published in Spanish language in 1942. Copies were only available on the black market in Brazil, and the text circulated in secret. The Argentine edition was later banned. The first Brazilian edition was published in 1945, but disappeared from bookstores after the military coup of 1964. The next edition was not published until 1979. Throughout the biography Jorge Amado addresses an imaginary female reader, showing his intention to speak directly to the Brazilian people, encouraging them to support democracy and liberty.

References

1942 non-fiction books Books by Jorge Amado Brazilian biographies {{Brazil-lit-stub