João Cabral de Melo Neto
| João Cabral de Melo Neto | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born | João Cabral de Melo Neto 9 January 1920 Recife, Brazil |
| Died | 9 October 1999 (aged 79) Rio de Janeiro, Brazil |
| Occupation | Writer |
| Nationality | Brazilian |
| Notable awards |
Camões Prize 1990 Neustadt International Prize for Literature 1992 |
João Cabral de Melo Neto (January 9, 1920 – October 9, 1999) was a Brazilian poet and diplomat, and one of the most influential writers in late Brazilian modernism. He was awarded the 1990 Camões Prize and the 1992 Neustadt International Prize for Literature, the only Brazilian poet to receive such award to date. He was considered until his death a perennial competitor for the Nobel Prize in Literature.
Melo Neto's works are characterized by a staunch formal righteousness that was present in several layers of his poems, something that distinguishes his oeuvre from that of any other Brazilian poet. His style ranges from the surrealist tendency that marked his early poetry to the use of regional elements of his native northeastern Brazil, including the traditional form of the cordel. In Morte e Vida Severina, the only of his works that have come to be widely read by the general public, both these later aspets are found through Melo Neto's addressing the culture and the harshness of life in arid Pernambuco.
Melo Neto was born in Recife, Pernambuco, and spent most of his youth in his family's sugar-cane mills in the interior of the state. He was a cousin of distinguished poet Manuel Bandeira and sociologist Gilberto Freyre. In 1940, his family moved to Rio de Janeiro.
Two years later, Melo Neto published his first book of poems, Pedra do Sono, from his own expense, with a circulation of 340 copies. In 1945, he applied to the position of diplomat, a position he would hold for most of his life. The followin year, he married Stella Maria Barbosa de Oliveira, with whom he had five children.
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