Background
José Bento Renato Monteiro Lobato was born on April 18, 1882, in Taubaté, Sao Paulo, Brazil. He was the son of José Bento Marcondes Lobato and Olympia Monteiro Lobato.
José Bento Renato Monteiro Lobato was born on April 18, 1882, in Taubaté, Sao Paulo, Brazil. He was the son of José Bento Marcondes Lobato and Olympia Monteiro Lobato.
Lobato was educated at the Institute de Ciencias e Letras, in Sao Paulo. He got his Bachelor of Laws degree at the University de Sao Paulo, in 1912.
Schooled as a lawyer, Lobato worked as a district attorney in the Paraiba Valley. Eventually Lobato moved on to manage his family’s estate, Buquira, from 1911 to 1916. After the estate was sold, Lobato returned to Sao Paula and dived into the world of publishing. In 1914 he wrote a profile of the rural Brazilian laborer Jeca Tatu, which earned him acclaim. He worked with Revista do Brasil magazine from its inception, contributing reviews, articles, and stories.
In 1917, he sold the farm and moved to São Paulo, concentrating on his journalistic endeavors. Sacy-Perêrê: Resultado de um inquérito was his first publishing venture at the end of the year, when he would also publish a critique of the painter Anita Malfatti's exhibit that would lead to a falling out with modernists.
The following year, he became immersed in publishing, purchasing Revista do Brasil and printing his first collection of short stories, Urupês, which caused a sensation on the market and was reprinted in multiple editions. His rise in business was meteoric. He published new writers and set higher standards for the bookselling industry, combining refined graphics with literary quality. He also decided to write for children. In December 1920, he launched A menina do narizinho arrebitado (The Girl with the Turned-up Nose) and struck gold. From then on, the people and adventures of Sítio do Picapau Amarelo (Yellow Woodpecker Farm) would win a place in the hearts of generations of young Brazilians.
Lobato acquired a publishing company and founded two others. One of the publishing houses failed in 1925, and from 1927 to 1931, Lobato worked in New York City as a commercial attache for Brazil. Living in this metropolis was the jolt that his restless and curious spirit was missing. In addition to pursuing new experiences, he continued his writing for children, even incorporating such foreign characters as Felix the Cat and Peter Pan. With the 1930 revolution, he lost his post and returned to the country determined to fight for economic modernization. The oil campaign (in which Lobato traveled across Brazil delivering speeches, sending letters, and making the whole country aware of the importance of oil to national development) ended up pitting him against the Vargas dictatorship, and he was imprisoned in 1941. This was quite a difficult period in his life, during which two of his children died as well. Grief-stricken, in 1946 he tried living in Argentina, but the cold proved too much for his health.
Lobato was a writer who never lacked an opinion. Possessing naturalist tendencies, he enjoyed writing about rural themes in the pre-modern fashion. Lobato felt that writing should be a direct expression of one’s thoughts.
Lobato was a member of the Uniáo Jornalistica Brasileira (director), Sindicato Nacional de Industria e Comércio (director), Academy Paulista de Letras.
Lobato was a controversial, outspoken intellectual whose fiction works took a back seat to his nonfiction. Lobato also enjoyed writing stories for children, and he authored numerous such works. His creation of colorful characters in books such as Narizinho arrebitado (“Little Turned-up Nose”) and Sitio do pica-pau ama- relo (“Yellow Woodpecker Farm”) endeared him to many and seemed to compensate him for the resistance that met his adult work. The Brazilian theater community turned several of Lobato’s children’s stories into operas for young people, and Lobato is regarded by many as the original creator of children’s literature in Brazil.
Quotes from others about the person
“The literary world is indebted to him for. Lobato’s theory of style: essentially, a forceful call for Brazilian writers to shun obscure allusions, outdated constructions, and infatuation with literature and to adopt, instead, a colloquial, genuinely Brazilian vocabulary and syntax, as well as a new, more familiar, visually dynamic imagery.” - Severino Joao Albuquerque
"Lobato was not a teller of stories but a critic of men.” - Isaac Goldberg