Background

Jorge Amado was born on August 10, 1912, in Itabuna, Bahia, Brazil, and was raised in Ilhéus city, Bahia. He was the firstborn of João Amado de Faria, a cocoa plantation owner, and D. Eulália Leal. Amado had three younger brothers, Joelson, James, and Jofre who died at the age of three.

Education

As a child, Jorge Amado witnessed the hard events lived by Brazilian working people, including land wars and conflicts. As a youngster, he even worked on the plantations along with the impoverished people harvesting cocoa beans.

The struggles of working people that Amado saw wasn't the only thing that had a great impact on him and formed a basis for his further stories. Living in a coastal region, he also developed a passion for sea which was featured in many of his novels.

Amado first studied in a convent school of Ilhéus. At the age of eleven, he was sent to Colégio Antônio Vieira in Salvador where he discovered the works of such authors as Charles Dickens, Jonathan Swift, José de Alencar as well as the Portuguese classic literature. One of Amado's teachers, Luiz Gonzaga Cabral, noted a writing talent in his pupil.

Amado left college in 1924. After a two-months trip around the Bahia regions, he entered a Ginásio Ipiranga. Since the age of fourteen, Jorge Amado became involved in the literary life. He contributed articles to several periodicals and took part in the foundation of a Bahian Modernist literary movement, Academia dos Rebeldes (Academy of Rebels) in 1928 along with his friends.

From 1930 to 1935, Amado studied at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro Faculty of Law. He never served as a lawyer, however.

Jorge Amado obtained honorary doctor’s degrees from the universities in Brazil, Portugal, Italy, France, and Israel.

Career

Jorge Amado's literary career can be counted from 1931 when his first novel, O País do Carnaval (The Country of Carnival) saw publication. True popularity came to the writer with Cacau novel two years later.

In 1935, Amado was arrested for the first time for his involvement in the activities of the political left. His books were prohibited within Portugal. However, Amado received international recognition due to the publication of Jubiabá in France in 1939. The book was highly appreciated by a notable French writer Albert Camus. The three early works of Amado reflected the instable socio-political climate in the country of the time featuring the exploitation of the poor workers on the cocoa plantations.

After the release in 1938, Jorge Amado relocated to Sao-Paolo. At the beginning of the new decade, he came back to Rio de Janeiro and then spent the period from 1941 to 1942 in exile in Argentina and Uruguay as a communist proponent. While there, Amado wrote a biography of Luís Carlos Prestes.

In 1943, Jorge Amado contributed to the Hora da Guerra column of the O Imparcial magazine. He edited a literary supplement for another periodical, the Nazi-funded political newspaper Meio-Dia, in the same period.

In 1945, Jorge Amado was appointed a federal congressman of the Brazilian Communist Party, serving in that capacity till the declaration of the Party as illegal in 1947. He was among the signers of the law which proclaimed the freedom of religious faith. Persecuted again as other members of the Party, he found exile in Europe settling down in Paris the following year.

While in France, Jorge Amado got acquainted with many writers and painters, including Jean-Paul Sartre and Pablo Picasso among others. In 1950, Amado was expelled from the country for political reasons and found shelter in Czechoslovakia where he lived with his wife for two subsequent years. He then traveled around Eastern Europe visiting the Soviet Union, Mongolia, and China.

Upon his return to Brazil in 1954, Jorge Amado published Os Subterrâneos da Liberdade (The Bowels of Liberty trilogy) written after a long break. It was at that time when Amado abandoned political activity and concentrated on writing only. The character of his books changed as well. He began to use more humor, lyricism, and imagination and his criticism of the establishment became subtler as it can be seen in Gabriela, Cravo e Canela (Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon) published in 1958.

The writer departed from the social topics and turned his attention to the cultural heritage of afro-brazilian people often featuring feminine characters as the main heroes of his novels. Such well-known stories of Amado as Dona Flor e seus dois maridos (Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands), Tenda dos Milagres (Tent of Miracles), Teresa Batista Cansada da Guerra (Tereza Batista: Home from the Wars), and Tieta do Agreste (Tieta) appeared in publication the following years.

In the 1980s, Jorge Amado wrote his memoirs O menino grapiúna and Tocaia Grande (Showdown) both dedicated to the culture of cocoa which figured as the main topic at the beginning of his career. O Sumiço da Santa (The War of the Saints) dates to the same period of the 1980s.

In 1992, Amado started to work on a novel commission by an Italian company to celebrate the 500 years of the Exploration of America. A Descoberta da América pelos Turcos (The Discovery of America by the Turks) was completed in 1994.

Jorge Amado had problems with reading and writing at the end of his life because of the obcecation caused by a pulmonary disease. He lived in his home in Rio Vermelho neighborhood of Salvador till the end of his days.

Achievements

• 

  Jorge Amado was one of the most popular and critically respected authors in Brazil, and he also had a large international following with books published in over fifty languages. He is sometimes called the "Balzac of Brazil" or "The Pele of the written word".
  
  His works have sold millions of copies, making best sellers of such novels as Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon, Home is the Sailor, Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands, and his personal favorite, The Violent Land.
  
  Several of his books were adapted into movies and television series. Even several samba schools of the Brazilian Carnival found inspiration in Amado’s novels. When Bantam bought the rights to his 1984 novel, Showdown, for $250,000, Amado became the highest-paid foreign author in the United States of that time.
  
  Jorge Amado won numerous awards and honors for his work, including the International Stalin Prize for Strengthening Peace, the Prêmio Jabuti, the French Legion of Honor, and the Meritorious Citizen of the Freedom and Social Justice João Mangabeira (posthumously). He was also a nominee for the Nobel Prize in literature.
  
  Amado was also named Commander and Grand Official in Venezuela, Spain, Portugal, Chile, and Argentina.
  
  There is a House of Jorge Amado Foundation established in 1987 in the Historic Center of Salvador for the protection of Amado’s legacy and the promotion of Bahian cultural heritage.

Works

More photos

• book

  • The Double Death of Quincas Water-Bray

    (The book tells the story of Joaquim Soares da Cunha, who ...)

    1959
  • The Discovery of America by the Turks

    (The book follows the adventures of two Arab immigrants, "...)

    1994
  • Tieta

    (Returning with her protegee to her native Bahia, talkativ...)

    1977
  • Show Down

    (Set in the Brazilian city of Tocaia Grande at the turn of...)

    1984
  • The Golden Harvest

    (A conspiracy of cacao-exporters attempts to destroy the p...)

    1944
  • Pen, Sword, Camisole

    (The bitter competition for the late Antonio Bruno's seat ...)

    1979
  • Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands

    (It surprises no one that the charming but wayward Vadinho...)

    1966
  • The War of the Saints

    (A statue of Saint Barbara comes to life in order to help ...)

    1988
  • Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon

    (Lusty, satirical and full of intrigue, the book is a vast...)

    1958
  • Jubiabá

    (A Brazilian Portuguese edition of Amado's novel that prov...)

    1935
  • Sea of Death

    (The author tells the dockside tales of Bahia.)

    1936
  • The Violent Land 1943
  • Home is the Sailor 1961
  • Shepherds of the Night 1964
  • Tent of Miracles 1969

Politics

Jorge Amado was a member of the Brazilian Communist Party from 1932 to 1955. He also was a member of the Aliança Nacional Libertadora from 1935.

In later years, Jorge Amado's political views mellowed somewhat and he claimed to favor a "utopian socialism" rather than communism.

Views

Quotations: "I am a writer who basically deals with social themes, since the source material for my creation is Brazilian reality. [Many of my] novels narrate the life of the people, everyday life, the struggle against extreme poverty, against hunger, the large estates, racial prejudice, backwardness, underdevelopment. The hero of my novels is the Brazilian people. My characters are the most destitute, the most needy, the most oppressed – country and city people without any power other than the strength of the mestizo people of Brazil. They say that I am a novelist of whores and vagabonds, and there is truth in that, for my characters increasingly are anti-heroes. I believe that only the people struggle selflessly and decently, without hidden motives."

Membership

Jorge Amado became a member of the Brazilian Academy of Letters on April 6, 1961. His wife replaced him after his death.

• Brazilian Academy of Letters , Brazil

  April 6, 1961

• Brazilian Association of Writers

Personality

Physical Characteristics: Jorge Amado died of a heart attack and lung failure.

Quotes from others about the person

• "Amado was strongly influenced by modern U.S. writers, who were in turn influenced by film. He's a son of Steinbeck." Nelson Pereira dos Santos, Brazilian director

Interests

• reading, gardening, cats, poker

• Writers

  Mark Twain, Charles Dickens

Connections

Jorge Amado was married twice. In 1933, Matilde Garcia Rosa became his first wife. She gave birth to a girl named Lila. Jorge and Matilde divorced in 1944.

A year later, Amado formed a family with Zélia Gattai, the writer. The family produced two children, João Jorge and Paloma.

Amado's daughter from the first marriage died in 1949.

Father:

João Amado de Faria

Mother:

D. Eulália Leal

Wife:

Matilde Garcia Rosa

Daughter:

Lila Amado

Son:

Juan Jorge Amado

Daughter:

Paloma Amado

Cousin:

Gilberto Amado

Cousin:

Véra Clouzot

Brother:

Joelson Amado

Brother:

James Amado

Friend:

Alice Raillard

She is a French translator of Jorge Amado's works.

Acquaintance:

Jean-Paul Sartre

Acquaintance:

Pablo Picasso

References

• The Jorge Amado Foundation Website