Jorge Amado

Born Aug. 10, 1912, in Ilhéus, state of Bahía. Brazilian public and political figure, member of the Brazilian Communist Party.

In his first novels Cacau (1933) and Sweat (1934), Amado tried to document the development of class consciousness among farm hands and workers. In the cycle of novels about Bahia—Jubiabá (1935), The Dead Sea (1936), and Captains of the Sand (1937)—Amado drew on Brazilian Negro folklore for a poetic depiction of the life and struggle of the poor. In the mid-1930’s he participated in the struggle of the National Liberation Alliance led by the Communist Party; he was arrested in 1936 and again in 1937–38, after the establishment of Vargas’ dictatorship. Amado left the country during 1941 and 1942.

Amado wrote biographies of the romantic poet A. de Castro Alves and the Brazilian Communist Party leader L. C. Prestes, as well as a novel in two parts on the bloody struggle for land by capitalists and plantation owners: Endless Lands (1943, Russian translation 1955) and The City of Ilhéus (1944, Russian translation 1948). In 1945, after his return to Brazil, Amado was elected communist deputy to the National Congress. The novel Red Sprouts (1946, Russian translation 1949)—a graphic embodiment of the revolutionization of the Brazilian peasantry—testifies to his mastery of the method of socialist realism. From 1948 to 1952 he lived as an émigré in France and Czechoslovakia, where he was active in the world peace movement. His novel The Underground of Freedom (1952, Russian translation 1954) depicts the social struggle in Brazil from 1937 to 1941. The world of idealistic thoughts and emotions, and the heroism of the simple people of Brazil led by the Communist Party are contrasted with a world of avarice, exploitation, violence, and depravity. In the novels Gabriela, Cloves and Cinnamon (1958, Russian translation 1961) and Doña Flor and Her Two Husbands (1966) and in the collections of novellas Old Sailors (1961, Russian translation 1963) and Pastors of the Night (1964, Russian translation 1966), Amado, introducing elements of fantasy and folklore, conveys the originality of the freedom-loving national character. In 1961 he was elected member of the Brazilian Academy. He is a member of the World Council of Peace. In 1951 he was awarded the International Lenin Prize for Strengthening Peace Between Nations. He has made frequent visits to the USSR.