José Mauro de Vasconcelos
| José Mauro de Vasconcelos | |
|---|---|
| Born |
February 26, 1920 Bangu, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil |
| Died | July 24, 1984 (aged 64) São Paulo City, Brazil |
| Occupation | writer |
José Mauro de Vasconcelos (February 26, 1920 – July 24, 1984) was a Brazilian writer.
José Mauro was born in Rio de Janeiro on February 26, 1920. His family was very poor, and when he was still very young, he migrated to Natal where relatives took care of him. Entering the Medical faculty, Mauro abandoned the course of studies in his second year and returned to Rio de Janeiro. There he worked as a boxing instructor and even as a painter's model.
Mauro initiated his literature with the novel Banana Brava. His greatest success was his novel My Sweet Orange Tree (Meu Pé de Laranja Lima) that tells about his own personal experiences and the shocks he suffered in his childhood with the abrupt changes of life. The story centers around little José, a 5-year-old boy who is being raised in a poor family with many brothers and sisters in Bangu, in the state of Rio de Janeiro. Partly because he rarely sees his parents, who are out to work long hours and only come back home at night, José plays all sorts of pranks on his neighbours and friends, leading his older brothers and sisters to think he is a mean kid. He can find little comfort and support in his own family, except from his older sister Gloria, for whom José is a kind of protegé. When moving houses with his family, José finds a little tree of sweet orange in the backyard, which he ignores at first for being too small to climb, but then becomes its friend once he discovers he can actually communicate with the tree. His only other friend is a Portuguese man from Trás-os-Montes called Manuel Valadares.
Mauro was part Indian and part Portuguese. He passed his childhood in Natal. When he was 9 years old, he learned to swim, and with pleasure he still remembers the days when he threw himself into the waters of the Potengi River to train for swimming competitions. Mauro frequently went to the sea. He won many swimming competitions and, like every boy, liked to play soccer and to climb trees. Mauro's first job, from 16 to 17 years old, was as sparring partner of featherweight boxers. Next, he worked in a farm in Mazomba, his job was to carry bananas. After that, he became a fisherman and lived on the coastline at Rio de Janeiro. Later he moved to Recife, where he became an elementary teacher and teacher at a fishermen's center.
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