CLÁSSICOS BRASILEIROS BRAZILIAN CLASSICS - Imprensa Oficial

Brazilian Classics
A selection of authors with works in public domain
66
JOÃO DO RIO
(1881 – 1921)
Along with Machado de Assis and Lima Barreto,
Paulo Barreto, a mulatto man, just like the other
two, makes up the best urban prose's trio from the
beginning of the 20th century. This novelist, who
was also a storyteller, a journalist, a playwright,
a chronicler, a lecturer, and an essayist, took the
blending of reporting and literary chronicles to
its last consequences, innovating on the writing
produced at the time. It is not false to say that
the belle-époque Rio de Janeiro was indeed an
invention of this man, who is the best example
of the Brazilian art nouveau literature. His life
and work fuses with the city, whose multiple
aspects he portrayed so well. Attending from
important presidential receptions to spiritualist
congregations in the outskirts of the city, as
well as samba parties in the slums of Rio de
Janeiro, he mingled with the crowd to describe
the routine of the downtrodden people of the
time. In addition to the color of his skin, already
a reason for discrimination, his homosexuality
defied the standards. But he did not become
popular as Paulo Barreto, but rather as João do
Rio, one of his many pen names.
Review
Main works
Excerpt
The enchanted soul of the streets
We were at Núncio Street. My good friend took
me into a bar on the corner with S. Pedro Street.
The wall of the house soon caught my eyes,
forgetting about the noise, the voices, the din
of people in and out of the place. I was before
a great commemorative mural painting. The
painter, surely excited by the outburst of pride
that took us all over when we saw the Central
Avenue, decided to immortalize it by painting it
on the wall, from Ouvidor Street to Prainha. The
conception was grandiose, the subject was vast -
the advent of our progress would be motionless
there forever, as long as Núncio Street remains.
I noticed that Casa Colombo and Primeiro
Barateiro appeared in a neat foreground while
the buildings would little by little, in an airblowing,
fade hastily away.
Master of the lyric disorder
"He was a master of the chronicle, unrivaledly mastering a confusing and illusory, hybrid and fluttering style; a Byzantine
mosaic he turned into sheer work of art, either by the insolence of satire, or by the beautiful Iyric disorder of certain
descriptions ".
(Agrippino Grieco, Evolução da prosa brasileira)
A perfect uniqueness
'One of the most original, independent, brilliant, prolific, and pioneering figures our literature has ever produced."
(João Carlos Rodrigues, João do Rio: uma biografia)
As religiões no Rio (1904); A alma encantadora das ruas (1908); Cinematographo (1909); Dentro da noite (1910); A
profissão de Jacques Pedreira (1911); Psicologia urbana (1911); Vida vertiginosa (1911); Memórias de um rato de hotel
(1912); Pall Mall (1917); A mulher e os espelhos (1919); Rosário da ilusão (1921); Celebridades, desejo (1932).