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. Mourão joined the

Brazilian Integralist Action Brazilian Integralist Action ( Portuguese: ''Ação Integralista Brasileira'', AIB) was an integralist/fascist political party in Brazil. It was based upon the ideology of Brazilian Integralism as developed by its leader Plínio Salgado. Brazi ...

in the late 1930s. In 1942, he was convicted of spying for

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalit ...

and sentenced to life imprisonment, later reduced to 30 years. He was released from prison in 1948. Mello Mourão was widely awarded, competing for the

Nobel Prize in Literature The Nobel Prize in Literature, here meaning ''for'' Literature (), is a Swedish literature prize that is awarded annually, since 1901, to an author from any country who has, in the words of the will of Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel, "in ...

by nomination from

The State University of New York The State University of New York (SUNY ) is a system of public colleges and universities in the State of New York. It is one of the largest comprehensive systems of universities, colleges, and community colleges in the United States. Led by c ...

. His most famous works are Invention of the Sea, with which he won the

Jabuti Prize The red-footed tortoise (''Chelonoidis carbonarius'') is a species of tortoise from northern South America. These medium-sized tortoises generally average as adults, but can reach over . They have dark-colored (nearly black), “loaf”-shaped ...

, and the trilogy Os Peãs. Of this trilogy,

Ezra Pound Ezra Weston Loomis Pound (30 October 1885 – 1 November 1972) was an List of poets from the United States, American poet and critic, a major figure in the early modernist poetry movement, and a Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Ita ...

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 Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges Acevedo ( ; ; 24 August 1899 – 14 June 1986) was an Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator regarded as a key figure in Spanish literature, Spanish-language and international literatur ...

, Antonio Houaiss, Nélida Piñon,

Alfredo Bosi Alfredo Bosi (26 August 1936 – 7 April 2021) was a Brazilian History, historian, literary critic, and professor. He was a member of the Academia Brasileira de Letras (''Brazilian Academy of Letters''), occupying Chair number 12. One of his most ...

, Dora Ferreira da Silva, Wilson Martins and Antônio Cândido.

Carlos Drummond de Andrade Carlos Drummond de Andrade () (October 31, 1902 – August 17, 1987) was a Brazilian poet and writer, considered by some as the greatest Brazilian poet of all time. He has become something of a national cultural symbol in Brazil, where his wi ...

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. During the dictatorship of

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 until his suicide in 1954. Due to his long and contr ...

, 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. * ''Poesia do homem só'' (Rio de Janeiro: Ariel Editora, 1938) * ''Mustafá Kemel'' (1938) * ''Do Destino do Espírito'' (1941) * ''Argentina'' (1942) * ''Cabo das Tormentas'' (Edic̜ões do Atril, 1950) * ''Três Pavanas'' (São Paulo: GRD, 1961) * ''O País dos Mourões'' (São Paulo: GRD, 1963) * ''Dossiê da destruição'' (São Paulo: GRD, 1966) * ''Frei e Chile num continente ocupado'' (Rio de Janeiro: Tempo Brasileiro, 1966) * ''Peripécia de Gerardo'' (São Paulo: Paz e Terra, 1972) rêmio Mário de Andrade de 1972* ''Astro de Apolo'' (São Paulo: GRD, 1977) * ''O Canto de Amor e Morte do Porta-estandarte Cristóvão Rilke'' radução(1977) * ''Pierro della Francesca ou as Vizinhas Chilenas: Contos'' (São Paulo: GRD, 1979) * ''Os Peãs'' (Rio de Janeiro: Record, 1982) * ''A invenção do saber'' (São Paulo: Paz e Terra, 1983) * ''Valete de Espadas'' (Rio de Janeiro: Guanabara, 1986) * ''O Poema, de Parmênides'' radução(''in'' Caderno Lilás, Secretaria de Cultura da Prefeitura do Rio de Janeiro: Caderno Rio-Arte. Ano 2, nr. 5, 1986) * ''Suzana-3 - Elegia e inventário'' (São Paulo: GRD, 1994) * ''Invenção do Mar: Carmen sæculare'' (Rio de Janeiro: Record, 1997), Prêmio Jabuti 1999 * ''Cânon & fuga'' (Rio de Janeiro: Record, 1999) * ''Um Senador de Pernambuco: Breve Memória de Antônio de Barros Carvalho'' (Rio de Janeiro: Topbooks, 1999) * ''O Bêbado de Deus'' (São Paulo: Green Forest do Brasil, 2000) * ''Os Olhos do Gato & O Retoque Inacabado'' (2002) * ''O sagrado e o profano'' (Florianópolis: Museu/Arquivo da Poesia Manuscrita, 2002) * ''Algumas Partituras'' (Rio de Janeiro: Topbooks, 2002) * ''O Nome de Deus'' osthumous(''in'': Confraria 2 anos, 2007)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Melo Mourao, Gerardo 1917 births 2007 deaths Brazilian writers Brazilian poets Brazilian politicians Brazilian journalists Brazilian fascists Collaborators with Nazi Germany Fascism in Brazil Far-right politics in Brazil Brazilian prisoners and detainees Prisoners and detainees of Brazil