Carlos de Oliveira

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Carlos de Oliveira (born August 10, 1921 in Belém , Brazil , † July 1, 1981 in Lisbon ) was a Portuguese writer and translator. He wrote novels, crônicas , short texts intended for publication in magazines, as well as poetry and is considered one of the most important authors of Portuguese neorealism .

Life

Oliveira was born in 1921 in the Brazilian city of Belém as the son of Portuguese emigrants. In 1923 the family moved back to Febres (Cantanhede) in Portugal, where the father worked as a doctor. In 1942 he published his first volume of poetry, and in 1943 his first novel Casa na Duna . In 1947 Carlos de Oliveira graduated from the University of Coimbra with a degree in history and philosophy in philosophy and history with a thesis on neorealist aesthetics. He married in 1949 and moved to Lisbon in 1950.

Carlos de Oliveira died on July 1, 1981 in Lisbon.

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Oliveira's realistic-pessimistic novels show the social dependencies of a poor and ossified society under Salazar's dictatorship . In their fatalism and with the idea that people are subject to historical influences, they do not offer any solution, but avoid the schematism and didactic intentions of other neorealists and, precisely because of this, were not very open to the censors. Oliveira's novel Uma Abelha na Chuva (1953; Eng. "A bee in the rain" 1989) is considered one of the most important Portuguese novels of the 20th century. It was made into a film by Fernando Lopes in 1973 and has been compulsory reading in Portuguese schools since the 1990s.

Oliveira's techniques and stylistic devices include the alternation of external and internal perspective, symbolic condensation, metaphors and metonyms (often recurring e.g. water and fire). The focus is on the inner life of the subjects, but these are controlled by events from afar (e.g. connection of the place to a road network leads to increased capitalist competition, which breaks in on provincial society). Oliveira always edited the new editions of his books thoroughly. By omitting spatial and temporal details and local color, as well as dominating form over content, he achieves a higher degree of compression, greater symbolic coherence and a faster narrative flow. With the symbolic compression and scarcity in Finisterra , Oliveira comes up against the limits of the realistic novel.

Honors

  • Prémio Bordalo in the literature category (1971);
  • Prémio Cidade de Lisboa of the Portuguese Writers' Union (1978).

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Poetry
  • Turismo (1942);
  • Mãe Pobre (1945);
  • Colheita Perdida (1948);
  • Descida aos Infernos (1949);
  • Terra de Harmonia (1950);
  • Cantata (1960);
  • Micropaisagem (1968, 1969);
  • Sobre o Lado Esquerdo, o Lado do Coração (1968, 1969);
  • Entre Duas Memórias (1971);
  • Pastoral (1977).
Novels
  • Casa na Duna (1943; 2000);
    • House on the Dune (1989), translated by Curt Meyer-Clason, Beck- und Glückler Verlag, ISBN 392417542X
  • Alcateia (1944; 1945);
  • Pequenos Burgueses (1948; 2000);
    • Kleinbürger (1991), translated by Curt Meyer-Clason, Beck- und Glückler Verlag, ISBN 3924175764
  • Uma Abelha na Chuva (1953; 2003);
    • A bee in the rain (1988), translated by Curt Meyer-Clason, Beck- und Glückler Verlag, ISBN 3924175411
    • Filmed in 1972 under the title Uma Abelha na Chuva , directed by Fernando Lopes
  • Finisterra: paisagem e povoamento (1978; 2003).
Chronicles
  • O Aprendiz de Feiticeiro (1971, 1979).
Anthologies
  • Poesias (1945-1960) (1962);
  • Trabalho Poético (1976; 2003).

Individual evidence

  1. ^ João Pedro de Andrade: Ambições e limites do Neo-Realismo Português . Editora Acontecimento, 2002.
  2. ↑ Dieter Offenhäuer: Epilogue to: Carlos de Oliveira: House on the dune. Freiburg 1989, pp. 151-179.
personal data
SURNAME Oliveira, Carlos de
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Portuguese writer and translator
DATE OF BIRTH August 10, 1921
PLACE OF BIRTH Belém, Brazil
DATE OF DEATH July 1, 1981
Place of death Lisbon