A short life of the author
Jorge Amado (1912–2001) was born on 10 August 1912 on a cacao plantation near Ilhéus, Bahia, Brazil. He was a member of the Brazilian Communist Party and was exiled twice. He was elected to the Brazilian Academy of Letters in 1961.
Life and Career
Amado’s early novels — Cacau (1933), Jubiabá (1935), Terras do Sem Fim (The Violent Land, 1943) — are social realist works about the cacao plantations and the poor of Bahia. In the late 1950s, his work shifted toward the comic, sensual, and celebratory.
Gabriela, Cravo e Canela (Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon, 1958) — about a beautiful mulata woman who arrives in a Bahian town and disrupts its social order — was an international bestseller. Dona Flor e Seus Dois Maridos (Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands, 1966) — about a woman whose dead husband returns as a ghost after she remarries — is his most famous novel, adapted into Brazil’s highest-grossing film (1976).
Major Works and Themes
Amado wrote about Bahia — its Afro-Brazilian culture, its food, its music, its racial mixing, and its sensuality. He is the great popular novelist of Brazil.
Key Works
- Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon (1958)
- Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands (1966)
Collecting Amado
Portuguese originals (Martins, Record) are the primary collected form. English translations bring $10–$25. Amado died in 2001.