Afonso Henriques de Lima Barreto

Afonso Henriques de Lima Barreto (born May 13, 1881 in Rio de Janeiro , † November 1, 1922 ibid), better known as Lima Barreto , was a Brazilian journalist and author. With Triste Fim de Policarpo Quaresma he wrote a literary classic of the country, which describes the adventures of a music and book-loving eccentric who is confronted with the peculiarities of Brazil at the turn of the century. Although little known outside of Brazil, the author is considered to be one of the best satirical authors in Brazilian literature. He used a strongly sarcastic, albeit refined, writing style by which he avoided the persecution of politicians and the military, who were often the targets of his criticism in the books.

Life

Lima Barreto was born in Rio de Janeiro to a poor family with a mixed ethnic background ( mulatto ). He spent his childhood in a psychiatric hospital where his father was a guard. The abolition of slavery in 1888 gave him a good education. After the death of his mother, he attended the public school of D. Teresa Pimental do Amaral. Soon after, he enrolled in the Liceu Popular Niteroiense after his godfather, the Viscount of Ouro Preto , agreed to pay for his schooling. He stayed there until 1894 and completed his studies. In 1895 he went to what was then the only institution for higher education, the prestigious Colégio Pedro II , whose students came mainly from the upper class. In 1895 he was also admitted to the Polytechnic School in Rio de Janeiro, but was forced to drop out in 1904 to take care of his siblings because of his father's mental illness. On repeated accusations of not being interested in classes, he spent his afternoons in the national library . Around this time he was hired as a copyist in the War Department through a competition, which gave him some financial stability. He became a civil servant and wrote as a journalist and novelist at the same time. He was released early because of his alcohol addiction. Barreto's life was marked by alcoholism and occasional psychiatric visits during periods of depression. At the age of 41 he died of a heart attack . Only after his untimely death did his work find recognition as an important contribution to Brazilian literature.

Literary activity

As a student, Lima Barreto began his journalistic career in 1902 with newspapers such as A Quinzena Alegre , O Tagarela , O Diabo and A Revista da Epoca . In 1905 he began to write for major newspapers such as the Correio da Manhã , where he wrote a number of reports on the destruction of the Morro do Castelo ("Castle Hill"). He then worked for several other newspapers and magazines such as Fon-Fon , Floreal , Gazeta da Tarde , Jornal (evening newspaper) , Bras Cubas (weekly), Hoje , Revista Souza Cruz and O Mundo Literario .

In 1911, Barreto and some of his friends published the magazine Floreal , which only survived until the second issue, but attracted the attention of some critics. In 1909 he got attention as a fiction writer after he published the novel Recordações do Escrivão Isaías Caminha (Memories of the writer Isaías Caminha) in Portugal . The narrative thread of the book, mixed with autobiographical elements, reveals a criticism of Brazilian society that Barreto denounces as biased and deeply hypocritical. The publication of the most important work Triste Fim de Policarpo Quaresma ("The sad end of Policarpo Quaresma") began in 1914 as a serial novel in a magazine. It was published in paperback a year later and was described by literary critics as a fundamental work of the premodern. As a social critic, he takes up the Revolta da Chibata from 1910 in his novel , which has been reprinted many times.

Triste Fim de Policarpo Quaresma and Recordações do Escrivão Isaías Caminha had some success with readers, which at the time did not save Barreto from harsh criticism from other authors. The criticism was based on the fact that Barreto consciously deviated from the elitist style that was popular at the time. He was described as sloppy because instead of classic Portuguese he also used colloquial language in his socially critical novels, which was more suitable for journalistic texts. They also bothered about his characters because they did not correspond to the usual forms. His attempts to join the Academia Brasileira de Letras were rejected. Barreto accused his opponents of not practicing literature as an art, but of using a given, recognized language in a mechanical manner.

Lima Barretos also writes journalistic texts for the workers' and anarchist press, such as A Plebe (“The People”), A Voz do Trabalhador (“The Workers Voice ”) and A Lanterna (“The Lantern”).

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writing style

Barreto was a very sarcastic writer, which is evident in his books. The main target of his criticism was the perceived mediocrity of the Brazilian people, mainly the government and the economic / military authorities. This is particularly evident in Os Bruzundanga's work .

The author also heavily criticized the complex and difficult writing style that was popular among the Brazilian authorities and which was agreed to testify to intelligence and high social status. Therefore, he himself also uses a simple style with fewer vocabulary requirements in order to be understandable to a majority in Brazilian society. This aroused increasing criticism from the Brazilian elite, who criticized his non-classic writing style.

Barreto also detailed the psychological states of his characters; In contrast to authors of realism such as the Brazilian Machado de Assis or the Portuguese Eça de Queirós , he does not consider this to be a special quality. Still, his works are full of strange situations about the beliefs and thoughts of his characters: for example, Policarpo Quaresma (Barreto's most legendary creation) was a radical and almost utopian patriot and his beliefs led him to his tragic end. Policarpo was also innocent enough to believe that “the original Brazilian nature” could be restored. Excessive innocence also condemned his character, Clara dos Anjos, to a dishonored life (see below). As for the adversaries, Barreto explores the hypocrisy, ignorance and indifference to other suffering. Psychopathy was introduced in his posthumously published book Clara dos Anjos by Cassi Jones , who has typical habits of a sociopath: absence of sympathy with the feelings of others, selfishness, and detailed planning for achieving his goals, no matter how wicked they are.

1915 - Triste Fim de Policarpo Quaresma ("The sad end of Policarpo Quaresma")

This story is considered Barreto's masterpiece and is therefore often read in Brazilian schools and often used in the so-called Vestibular , the annual exams for university admission in Brazil. It tells the story of Policarpo Quaresma , a radical Brazilian patriot. Policarpo's favorite dream is Brazil's rise to world power. He notices many problems in the political and social structure of his country, realizes that Brazilians value European culture more than that of their own country and tries to change this.

The story can be broken down into three different parts:

The cultural reform

Policarpo Quaresma tries to make the local Tupi language the official language of Brazil. He sends the government a letter demanding that Tupi be introduced as the official language. News of his strange request got into the press and the local press made fun of Policarpo. Quaresma then moves back to the town of Curuzu in the rural part of Rio de Janeiro , where he starts a new job.

Agricultural reform

Policarpo is building a small farm with the help of an old, dark-skinned man and tries to sell the products in the capital. He wants to show people how valuable Brazilian land can be. Unfortunately, a plague attacks his fields and he starts a guerrilla war against the ants and vermin. Then a local politician comes to his house and asks for support in the election, but Policarpo refuses. As a revenge, the politicians begin to damage his farm. At this time, many popular revolutions caused great political turmoil in Brazil and Policarpo was called up for military service.

The military reform

While trying to defend a fortress, Policarpo sees tons of problems in the Brazilian military structure and sends a letter to the president, Floriano Peixoto , a rude and ignorant man who prays for better conditions for the fortress' prisoners of war and other soldiers. After reading the letter, Floriano Policarpo considers him a revolutionary and sentenced him to death. At the end of the story, Policarpo Quaresma is killed for high treason.

1923 - Os Bruzundangas

Os Bruzundangas are a collection of stories that Lima Barreto published in newspapers over a period of 20 years. They tell of the life of the people of Bruzundanga, a fictional country that stands for Brazil. Barreto decided to introduce the fictional land to avoid persecution by politicians or other authorities. In the stories of the book he tells of the corruption that is present in Bruzundanga in all areas of public life - from politics to education. They contain many allegorical equivalents to famous Brazilian people and public institutions.

1948 - Clara dos Anjos

This posthumously published novel tells of Clara dos Anjos, a girl from a poor family who lives in a suburb of Rio de Janeiro. The story is about Clara's enthusiasm for Cassi Jones, an unscrupulous boy and son of a wealthy family. Cassi, who has impregnated and abandoned an innumerable number of women, seduces Clara for his lustful purposes. Clara, inexperienced because of her parents' protectionism, becomes pregnant. In the end, Cassi flees, and Clara stands abandoned and “dishonored”. In his book, Barreto wants to show the usually humiliating fate of poor women in Brazil, as he does in Clara's last quote: “We are nothing in this life”. In addition, it shows the hypocrisy of rich people (mainly represented by Cassis mother, who constantly takes her son under protection) and the absurd egoism of the Brazilian youth (represented by Cassi Jones).

Other works

• O Subterranean do Morro do Castelo (1905)
• Recordações do Escrivão Isaías Caminha (1909)
• O Homem que Sabia Javanês e outros contos (1911)
• Vida e Morte de MJ Gonzaga de Sá (1919)
• Cemitério dos Vicos (1920)
• Histórias e Sonhos (1920)
• Outras Histórias e Contos Argelinos (1952, posthumous)
• Coisas do Reino de Jambom (1953, posthumous)

Web links

Wikisource: Lima Barreto  - Sources and full texts

Commons : Lima Barreto  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

Wikiquote: Afonso Henriques de Lima Barreto  - Quotes

• Literature by and about Afonso Henriques de Lima Barreto in the catalog of the German National Library
• Literature by and about Afonso Henriques de Lima Barreto in the catalog of the Ibero-American Institute of Prussian Cultural Heritage, Berlin
• Literature by and about Afonso Henriques de Lima Barreto in the bibliographic database WorldCat