Jorge Amado (1912–2001)
Author of Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon
About the Author
Jorge Amado, August 10, 1912 - August 6, 2001 Elected to the Brazilian Academy of Letters, Jorge Amado possesses a talent for storytelling as well as a deep concern for social and economic justice. He was born in Bahia, Brazil, in 1912. Some critics claim that his early works suffer from his show more politics. Others commonly express reservations concerning Amado's sentimentality and erotico-mythic stereotyping. In the works represented in English translation, his literary merits prevail. The Violent Land (1942) chronicles the development of Brazilian territory and struggles for its resources, memorializing the deeds of those who built the country. Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon (1958), which achieved critical and popular success in both Brazil and the United States, tells a sensual love story of a Syrian bar owner and his beautiful cook. Home Is the Sailor (1962) introduces Captain Vasco Moscoso de Aragao, a comic figure in the tradition of Don Quixote. In Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands (1966), Amado introduced the folk culture of shamans and Yorube gods. The protagonists of Shepherds of the Night (1964) are Bahia's poor. (Bowker Author Biography) Jorge Amado has been called the greatest twentieth-century Brazilian novelist. He was born in 1912 in Ilheus, in the northeastern-most state of Bahai. This area serves as the backdrop for most of Amado's work, which reflects a deep appreciation of the Brazilian essence. Amado's works have made him a national figure in Brazil. Amado's early novels were shaped by a belief in Marxism, and relate the sufferings of humble fishermen and cocoa plantation workers. By the 1950s, he had turned his attention to the plight of middle-class Bahains. This more jovial approach brought him worldwide acclaim, and his keen comic sense and appreciation of the common man have drawn comparisons to the novels of Charles Dickens. Music, cuisine, and passion figure prominently in Amado's literary output. Amado's works have been translated from Portuguese into more than forty languages, have sold over fifty million copies worldwide, and have been reworked for film, television, and stage. His portraits of commanding female characters, including Gabriela from Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon, and Dona Flor from Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands, have been adapted to the screen, and actress Sonia Braga earned her initial success in these roles. Other titles include The Sand Captains; Memory of a Child; The War of the Saints; and Home Is the Sailor. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Image credit: Jorge Amado, 1988.
Series
Works by Jorge Amado
La cucina di Bahia, ovvero Il libro di cucina di Pedro Archanjo e Le merende di dona Flor (1994) 18 copies
literatura comentada 4 copies
Rua Alagoinhas 33, Rio Vermelho: A casa de Zelia e Jorge Amado (Casa de palavras) (Portuguese Edition) (1999) 3 copies
Boa Noite, Querida Panda 2 copies
Boa Noite, Querido Coelhinho 2 copies
OS PASTÔRES DA NOITE 2 copies
ميتتان لرجل واحد 2 copies
Romanzi - Volume I 2 copies
نساء البن 2 copies
miecio tati rio dos fogados 1 copy
Titel aus Agreste 1 copy
LITERATURA BRASILEIRA 1 copy
Fotobiografia 1 copy
Zeme nekonečné : Román 1 copy
perminio asfora 1 copy
A LUZ NO TÚNEL 1 copy
AGONIA DA NOITE 1 copy
o capitao de longo curso 1 copy
gabriela crava e canela 1 copy
sao jorge dos ilhes 1 copy
I - OS ÁSPEROS TEMPOS 1 copy
II - AGONIA DA NOITE 1 copy
III ~ A LUZ NO TÚNEL 1 copy
LYGIA MARINA MORAES CONHEÇA 1 copy
TERRAS DO SEM FIM ROMANCE 1 copy
O MENINO GRAPIÚNA 1 copy
Viva o Povo Brasileiro 1 copy
רועי-לילה 1 copy
Amado Jorge 1 copy
Bahia Boa Terra Bahia 1 copy
Bahia Colorida 1 copy
Conversa com Fuanga Félé,(...) Mario de Andrade, chefe da luta de Angola - Tempo Brasileiro, 1 1 copy
Jorge Amado 1 copy
A Luz do Túnel 1 copy
فتيان الرمال 1 copy
O País Do Carnaval 1 copy
Габриэла, корица и гвоздика 1 copy
Mies Rojas 1 copy
Alınteri 1 copy
Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon / The Double Death of Quincas Water-Bray / Home Is the Sailor (2000) 1 copy
Los viejos marineros 1 copy
Капітани піску - Габрієла 1 copy
Associated Works
A Hammock Beneath the Mangoes: Stories from Latin America (1991) — Contributor — 162 copies, 3 reviews
Antaeus No. 64/65, Spring/Autumn 1990 - Twentieth Anniversary Issue (1990) — Contributor — 14 copies
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Canonical name
- Amado, Jorge
- Legal name
- Amado de Faria, Jorge
- Birthdate
- 1912-08-10
- Date of death
- 2001-08-06
- Gender
- male
- Education
- Federal University of Rio de Janeiro Faculty of Law
- Occupations
- politician
writer - Organizations
- Federal Deputy for São Paulo
National Constituent Assembly - Awards and honors
- Camões Prize (1994)
International Nonino Prize (1984)
Légion d'Honneur (1984)
Brazilian Academy of Letters (1961)
Stalin Peace Prize (1951)
Commander, Meritoirous Citizen of the Freedom and Social Justice João Mangabeira (2014) (show all 7)
Prêmio Jabuti (Personalidade Literaria do Ano, 1962, 1984) - Relationships
- Gattai, Zélia (wife)
- Short biography
- Blurb: Jorge Amado, geboren in 1912, wordt beschouwd als de grootste schrijver in Brazilië. Met meer dan 8 miljoen exemplaren van zijn boeken in druk is hij de spreekbuis en getuige van zijn geliefde volk. Hij weet zowel hun armoede als hun strijd, hun hartstochten en hun dromen op onnavolgbare wijze op te roepen. Amper 19 jaar oud publiceerde Amado zijn eerste werk en reeds op 23-jarige leeftijd was hij een der succesvolste auteurs van Zuid-Amerika. De tientallen romans die deze eminente volksverteller heeft gecreëerd, waaronder de internationale bestsellers Gabriele, Dona Flore en haar twee echtgenoten, Vlinders van de nacht en Tereza Batista, zijn vertaald in 45 talen en gepubliceerd in 60 landen. Tocaia Grande, in drie haar tijd geschreven, is de meest gedurfde en meest luisterrijke roman uit Amado’s roemrijke schrijversloopbaan. Deze wonderlijke, onvergetelijke geschiedenis van een werkelijk unieke stad, waarin opnieuw de zelfkant van de Braziliaanse samenleving centraal staat, is wederom onmiddelijk een wereldwijde bestseller geworden (flaptekst).
- Cause of death
- heart and lung failure
- Nationality
- Brazil
- Birthplace
- Itabuna, Bahia, Brazil
- Places of residence
- Itabuna, Brazil
Ilhéus, Brazil
Paris, France
Prague, Czechoslovakia - Place of death
- Salvador, Bahia, Brazil
- Burial location
- Cremated, Ashes in his garden
- Associated Place (for map)
- Brazil
Members
Discussions
Group Read, May 2016: Gabriela, Cinnamon and Clove in 1001 Books to read before you die (May 2016)
Reviews
For the first 500 pages or so, this pretends to be a straightforward pastiche of an old-fashioned social-realist novel, the sort of thing Balzac would undoubtedly have written, had he been a hundred years younger and living in Bahia. It's all about the flimsiness of the veneer of respectability that (notionally) separates the ambitious, modern, bourgeois, Catholic residents of Salvador de Bahia from the colourful world of gambling, vice, and traditional religion that surrounds them.
Dona show more Flor is a respectable, self-made woman, proprietor of a celebrated cookery school for the daughters of the rich, but her first husband, Vadinho, is an irresponsible gambler and a party-animal who can't give her anything but love. When he meets his untimely end whilst dancing in drag at the carnival, Flor follows the advice of her friends and — after the required decent interval — takes the considerate, methodical and ever-so-slightly-boring pharmacist and amateur bassoonist Teodoro as her second husband. Naturally, she still has occasional pangs for her nights of passion with the late Vadinho, and Amado takes shameless advantage of her weakness to play a Latin-American novelist's trump card in the last 150 pages, producing much very entertaining chaos in the process.
This is the sort of book where you feel you must be missing out on a lot of in-jokes at the expense of Amado's friends and neighbours, but it also sneaks in quite a lot of detailed social analysis of provincial Brazil in the mid-20th century and the changes it was going through. Flor and her friends are women who have been brought up with a very narrow idea of their role in the world, but many of them have found more or less subtle ways to challenge that. show less
Dona show more Flor is a respectable, self-made woman, proprietor of a celebrated cookery school for the daughters of the rich, but her first husband, Vadinho, is an irresponsible gambler and a party-animal who can't give her anything but love. When he meets his untimely end whilst dancing in drag at the carnival, Flor follows the advice of her friends and — after the required decent interval — takes the considerate, methodical and ever-so-slightly-boring pharmacist and amateur bassoonist Teodoro as her second husband. Naturally, she still has occasional pangs for her nights of passion with the late Vadinho, and Amado takes shameless advantage of her weakness to play a Latin-American novelist's trump card in the last 150 pages, producing much very entertaining chaos in the process.
This is the sort of book where you feel you must be missing out on a lot of in-jokes at the expense of Amado's friends and neighbours, but it also sneaks in quite a lot of detailed social analysis of provincial Brazil in the mid-20th century and the changes it was going through. Flor and her friends are women who have been brought up with a very narrow idea of their role in the world, but many of them have found more or less subtle ways to challenge that. show less
"Novella" is an overstatement for the length of this book, about 50 normally formatted pages. But it is a gross understatement of the epic scope and depth of humanity it portrays. The main character, Joaquim Soares da Cunha or Quincas Water-Bray, is dead for the entire book. But he is also fuller and more alive than most fictional creations.
The plot is simple enough: Quincas, dubbed "the king of the tramps of Bahia" by the newspapers, is found dead. A formerly respectable civil servant, he show more has spent the last decade drinking rum, gambling, consorting with prostitutes, and living under a different name apart from his family. His respectable daughter, brother, and their spouses claim the body and prepare it for a respectable burial. But then his tramp friends come, take the body out for one last night on the town, pour liquor down its throat, carry it around as if its drunk, refer to it as if its alive, and ultimately it "chooses" to jump off a boat and be buried at sea.
But in the course of this, reflected through the perceptions and memories of others, you get a glimpse of a larger-than-life charismatic figure in the slums and the contradictory ways in which he is viewed and processed by two sets of people. Plus it is also humorous and humane--albeit not exactly in a laugh-out-loud sort of a way. show less
The plot is simple enough: Quincas, dubbed "the king of the tramps of Bahia" by the newspapers, is found dead. A formerly respectable civil servant, he show more has spent the last decade drinking rum, gambling, consorting with prostitutes, and living under a different name apart from his family. His respectable daughter, brother, and their spouses claim the body and prepare it for a respectable burial. But then his tramp friends come, take the body out for one last night on the town, pour liquor down its throat, carry it around as if its drunk, refer to it as if its alive, and ultimately it "chooses" to jump off a boat and be buried at sea.
But in the course of this, reflected through the perceptions and memories of others, you get a glimpse of a larger-than-life charismatic figure in the slums and the contradictory ways in which he is viewed and processed by two sets of people. Plus it is also humorous and humane--albeit not exactly in a laugh-out-loud sort of a way. show less
La découverte de l'Amérique par les Turcs ou Comment l'Arabe Jamil Bichara, défricheur de terres vierges, venu en la bonne ville d'Itabuna pour satisfaire aux nécessités du corps, s'y vit offrir fortune et mariage ou encore Les fiançailles d'Adma: mini-roman by Jorge Amado
A late novella, written as a tie-in with the celebrations for the 500th anniversary of Columbus's discovery of China Hispaniola. Amado reasons that if Columbus could be said to have "discovered America", the same thing could just as well be said of two Ottoman opportunists who happened to arrive in Bahia on the same immigrant ship in 1903. Raduan becomes a professional poker-player, Jamil a shopkeeper, and there's a comic plot of Raduan trying to marry Jamil off to Adma, fearsome daughter of show more Ibrahim, proprietor of the Bon Marché drapery.
Amado uses a deceptively simple kind of Arabian Nights narrative style to tell the story, but it's all heavily loaded with irony. If it's a rehash of The taming of the shrew then it's one in which the men are shown to be just as shallow and selfish as the women. Ibrahim's chief motivation for marrying off his daughter is to obtain the freedom to go fishing in the mornings again: he apparently sees nothing odd about canvassing a possible suitor for her hand during a party at the local brothel. Amado's narrator seems to be on the side of the men in the battle, but it's not at all clear that the reader is expected to agree with that. show less
Amado uses a deceptively simple kind of Arabian Nights narrative style to tell the story, but it's all heavily loaded with irony. If it's a rehash of The taming of the shrew then it's one in which the men are shown to be just as shallow and selfish as the women. Ibrahim's chief motivation for marrying off his daughter is to obtain the freedom to go fishing in the mornings again: he apparently sees nothing odd about canvassing a possible suitor for her hand during a party at the local brothel. Amado's narrator seems to be on the side of the men in the battle, but it's not at all clear that the reader is expected to agree with that. show less
Jorge Amado wrote this story in 1948 as a gift for his young son, João Jorge, but without any idea of publishing it. When João Jorge chanced upon the manuscript in 1976, he had the idea of making at least one proper copy, and asked his father's friend, the artist Carybé, to add some pictures — and before they knew what was happening the book had been published and was a big success.
It's an innocent-looking little fable about a doomed love affair between the stripy tom-cat and the show more swallow Sinhá, against the background of the changing seasons in a park, but it turns out to be a story that refuses to resolve itself into any neat moral, and which has some modernist leaps of narrative logic that must have been quite challenging for a one-year-old to follow, not to mention a frame-story that seems to be a parody of Vergil, whilst the animals in the park include a parrot-priest (with at least one illegitimate child) and a toad-literary-critic. Quite a bit for grown-ups to laugh at! show less
It's an innocent-looking little fable about a doomed love affair between the stripy tom-cat and the show more swallow Sinhá, against the background of the changing seasons in a park, but it turns out to be a story that refuses to resolve itself into any neat moral, and which has some modernist leaps of narrative logic that must have been quite challenging for a one-year-old to follow, not to mention a frame-story that seems to be a parody of Vergil, whilst the animals in the park include a parrot-priest (with at least one illegitimate child) and a toad-literary-critic. Quite a bit for grown-ups to laugh at! show less
Lists
Awards
You May Also Like
Associated Authors
Statistics
- Works
- 149
- Also by
- 5
- Members
- 10,782
- Popularity
- #2,200
- Rating
- 3.9
- Reviews
- 215
- ISBNs
- 797
- Languages
- 22
- Favorited
- 32
