Rachel de Queiroz (1910-2003) was a great Brazilian writer, journalist, translator and playwright. She won several awards, among them the "Prêmio Camões" (1993), being therefore the first woman to receive it.
In addition, she was the first woman to hold a chair at the Academia Brasileira de Letras, in 1977.
Given its importance for national literature, in 2003 the "Rachel de Queiroz Cultural Center" was inaugurated in Quixadá (CE), the city where Rachel lived.
Biography
Rachel de Queiroz was born in the capital of Ceará, Fortaleza, on November 17, 1910.
Daughter of intellectuals, of lawyer Daniel de Queiroz Lima and Clotilde Franklin de Queiroz, she was maternally descended from the Alencar lineage (her maternal great-grandmother was cousin José de Alencar).
At only 7 years old, his family moved to Rio de Janeiro and then to Belém do Pará.
After two years they return to Ceará and Rachel becomes an intern at the “Colégio Imaculada Conceição”. At just 15 years old, she graduated as a teacher in 1925.
She taught History and, at the age of 20, in 1930, published her first novel, “the fifteen”. In this work, the writer portrays the drought of 1915 in the northeast of the country and the reality of northeastern migrants.
The work well received by the public, “the fifteen”, She was awarded the Graça Aranha Foundation award.
In 1927, after a publication under the pseudonym “Rita de Queiroz” in the Jornal do Ceará, Rachel was invited to collaborate in that newspaper. In it, she begins to publish several chronicles and work as a reporter.
She has been a political activist and affiliated with the Brazilian Communist Party since 1930.
In 1932, she marries the poet José Auto da Cruz Oliveira, separating in 1939. The following year, she marries again the doctor Oyama de Macedo, with whom she remains until his death in 1982.
In 1992, she wrote the novel “Maria Moura Memorial”, which awarded him the "Camões Award". At the age of 92, on November 4, 2003, in the city of Rio de Janeiro, resting in her hammock, Rachel de Queiroz died.
Construction
Possessing a vast body of work, Rachel de Queiroz has written novels, short stories and chronicles, with an emphasis on social fiction from the Northeast. In addition, she wrote children's literature, anthologies and plays. Below are some works:
- the fifteen (1930)
- João Miguel (1932)
- Stone Paths (1937)
- The Three Marys (1939)
- Three Novels (1948)
- The Golden Rooster (1950)
- Lampion (1953)
- The Blessed Mary of Egypt (1958)
- Four Novels (1960)
- The Magic Boy (1969)
- Select (1973)
- Dora Doralina (1975)
- Memorial of Maria Moura (1992)
- Andira (1992)
- The Rough Lands (1993)
- Theater (1995)
- False Sea, False World (2002)
Sentences
Below are some sentences by the writer:
- “I was never a well-behaved girl. I could, I never had a vocation for shy joy, for passion without multiple orgasms or for unresolved love without hiccups. I want from life what is raw and beautiful. I'm not here for people to like me. I'm here to learn to like every detail I have..”
- “I'm not a feminist. I think society has to grow together. The association between men and women is very good and I think it's a big mistake to fight men.”
- "Fhe speaks highly of the cruelty and brutality of medieval men. But is modern man better?”
- “We are born and die alone. And maybe that's why it's so necessary to live together.”
- “I'm these people who hurt themselves because they don't live only on the surface of things.”
- “Unfortunately I don't believe in God. I think it's great poverty not to have a faith. It's a helplessness, a very great loneliness.”
Read too:
- social poetry
- Romance of 30
- Modernism in Brazil
- Second Generation Modernist
- The Language of Modernism
- Authors of the Second Phase of Modernism in Brazil
- neorealism
