José Geraldo Vieira (April 16, 1897 – August 17, 1977) was a Brazilian writer, translator, and literary critic.

Translator

As a translator, Vieira was

James Joyce James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (born James Augusta Joyce; 2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941) was an Irish novelist, poet, and literary critic. He contributed to the modernist avant-garde movement and is regarded as one of the most influentia ...

's first translator in Brazil, and was also one of the first Brazilian writers to be strongly influenced by Joyce. He translated 60 books between 1944 and 1971. Among them the authors:

Albert Schweitzer Ludwig Philipp Albert Schweitzer (; 14 January 1875 – 4 September 1965) was a German and French polymath from Alsace. He was a theologian, organist, musicologist, writer, humanitarian, philosopher, and physician. As a Lutheran minister, ...

Alphonse Daudet Alphonse Daudet (; 13 May 184016 December 1897) was a French novelist. He was the husband of Julia Daudet and father of Edmée, Léon and Lucien Daudet. Early life Daudet was born in Nîmes, France. His family, on both sides, belonged to the ' ...

Bertrand Russell Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970) was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, and public intellectual. He had influence on mathematics, logic, set theory, and various areas of analytic ...

, Dostoievski,

Emil Ludwig Emil Ludwig (25 January 1881 – 17 September 1948) was a German-Swiss author, known for his biographies and study of historical "greats." Biography Emil Ludwig (originally named Emil Cohn) was born in Breslau (now part of Poland) on 25 Ja ...

Erskine Caldwell Erskine Preston Caldwell (December 17, 1903 – April 11, 1987) was an American novelist and short story writer. His writings about poverty, racism and social problems in his native Southern United States, in novels such as '' Tobacco Road'' (19 ...

François Mauriac François Charles Mauriac (; ; 11 October 1885 – 1 September 1970) was a French novelist, dramatist, critic, poet, and journalist, a member of the'' Académie française'' (from 1933), and laureate of the 1952 Nobel Prize in Literature, Nobel Pr ...

Hemingway Ernest Miller Hemingway ( ; July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer and journalist. Known for an economical, understated style that influenced later 20th-century writers, he has been romanticized f ...

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Mika Waltari Mika Toimi Waltari (; 19 September 1908 – 26 August 1979) was a Finnish writer, best known for his best-selling novel ''The Egyptian'' (). He was extremely productive. Besides his novels he also wrote poetry, short stories, crime novels, plays, ...

, Níkos Kazantzákis, Pirandello,

Stendhal Marie-Henri Beyle (; 23 January 1783 – 23 March 1842), better known by his pen name Stendhal (, , ), was a French writer. Best known for the novels ''Le Rouge et le Noir'' ('' The Red and the Black'', 1830) and ''La Chartreuse de Parme'' ('' T ...

Thomas Merton Thomas Merton (January 31, 1915December 10, 1968), religious name M. Louis, was an American Trappist monk, writer, theologian, Christian mysticism, mystic, poet, social activist and scholar of comparative religion. He was a monk in the Trapp ...

and

Tolstoy Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy Tolstoy pronounced his first name as , which corresponds to the romanization ''Lyov''. () (; ,Throughout Tolstoy's whole life, his name was written as using pre-reform Russian orthography. ; ), usually referr ...

Writer

As a writer, José Geraldo Vieira is noted for his strong, image-laden evocations of setting, as well as his explorations of human emotional conflict in the context of religious and moral questions. Acclaimed novels such as “The Slope of Memory”, “The Woman Who Escaped from Sodom”, “The Albatross” and “The Fortieth Door” have primarily urban settings -

Rio de Janeiro Rio de Janeiro, or simply Rio, is the capital of the Rio de Janeiro (state), state of Rio de Janeiro. It is the List of cities in Brazil by population, second-most-populous city in Brazil (after São Paulo) and the Largest cities in the America ...

São Paulo São Paulo (; ; Portuguese for 'Paul the Apostle, Saint Paul') is the capital of the São Paulo (state), state of São Paulo, as well as the List of cities in Brazil by population, most populous city in Brazil, the List of largest cities in the ...

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

- although they also include vivid evocations of pastoral landscapes such as, in the case of “The Fortieth Door”, rural Portugal. Vieira also uses the tumultuous events of the twentieth century, such as the

first First most commonly refers to: * First, the ordinal form of the number 1 First or 1st may also refer to: Acronyms * Faint Images of the Radio Sky at Twenty-Centimeters, an astronomical survey carried out by the Very Large Array * Far Infrared a ...

and

second World Wars World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

and the

Russian Revolution The Russian Revolution was a period of Political revolution (Trotskyism), political and social revolution, social change in Russian Empire, Russia, starting in 1917. This period saw Russia Dissolution of the Russian Empire, abolish its mona ...

, to universalize the experiences of his characters. With the exception of a Spanish-language version of “The Woman Who Escaped from Sodom”, Vieira’s works were not translated during his lifetime, a point of irony given his renown as a translator of English and French-language works into Portuguese. In 2023, ''The Slope of Memory (A Ladeira da Memória)'' became the first of Vieira's works to be translated into English. The translation was completed by the author's grandson, Roberto Geraldo van Eyken, and published by Kirion Press.

Works

In Portuguese. * ''O Triste Epigrama'' (1919) * ''A Ronda do Deslumbramento'' (1922) * ''A Mulher que Fugiu de Sodoma'' (1931) * ''Território Humano'' (1936) * ''A Quadragésima Porta'' (1944) * ''A Túnica e os Dados'' (1947) * ''Carta à Minha Filha em Prantos'' (1946) * ''A Ladeira da Memória'' (1949) * ''O Albatroz'' (1951) * ''Terreno Baldio'' (1961) * ''Paralelo 16: Brasília'' (1967) * ''A Mais que Branca'' (1973) * ''Mansarda Acesa'' (1975) * ''Crítica de Arte na Revista Habitat'' (posthumous, 2012) * ''Impressões e expressões'' (posthumous, 2016)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Vieira, Jose Geraldo Brazilian writers 1897 births 1977 deaths