Skip to content
Guimarães Rosa

File:Guimarães_Rosa,_anos_1960.jpg · Wikimedia Commons · See Wikimedia Commons

EntityQ13012· pop 39· linked from 576 articles

Guimarães Rosa

Sign in to save

Also known as João Guimarães Rosa

Brazilian novelist (1908-1967)

OverviewAI-generated

João Guimarães Rosa was a Brazilian physician, writer, diplomat, and Esperantist. Born in Cordisburgo in 1908, he was educated at the Federal University of Minas Gerais. He served as an ambassador and was a member of the Brazilian Academy of Letters. His notable works include *The Devil to Pay in the Backlands*, *A hora e vez de Augusto Matraga*, and *Corpo de baile*. He wrote in Portuguese and also spoke Esperanto, Brazilian Portuguese, and French.

Rosa received the Order of Cultural Merit (Brazil) and the Prêmio Machado de Assis. He was married to Aracy de Carvalho. He died of natural causes due to a myocardial infarction in Rio de Janeiro on November 19, 1967.

Synthesized by Vinony from 38 facts across 7 sources: Wikidata, OpenAlex, Open Library, MusicBrainz, Crossref, Last.fm, Vinony graph. Generated from structured data (not the Wikipedia text) and checked against those facts — may still contain errors.

Person · Open Library

Born
1908
Died
1967
Works
106

Top works

  • Grande sertão
  • Seleta de João Guimarães Rosa
  • A João Guimarães Rosa
  • A hora e vez de Augusto Matraga
  • הסרטאו הגדול

via Open Library + Wikidata

Music · MusicBrainz

Type
Person
Country
US
Active from
1937-12-12
Active to
2025-07-16

via MusicBrainz · CC0

Listeners · Last.fm

Listeners
96
Total plays
198

<a href="https://www.last.fm/music/Guimar%C3%A3es+Rosa">Read more on Last.fm</a>

via Last.fm · Guimarães Rosa

Academic profile · OpenAlex

6h-index
Works
40
Cited by
160

Research areas

HumanitiesArtGeographyPolitical scienceComputer science

Most cited works

via OpenAlex · CC0

Key facts

Preceded by
João Neves da Fontoura
Succeeded by
Mário Palmério
Born
( 1908-06-27 ) 27 June 1908, Cordisburgo , Minas Gerais , Brazil
Died
19 November 1967 (1967-11-19) (aged 59), Rio de Janeiro , Guanabara , Brazil
Alma mater
Federal University of Minas Gerais
Occupation
Author, novelist, short story writer
Profession
Diplomat and medical doctor

via Wikipedia infobox

Wikidata facts

Instance of
human
Given name
João
Family name
Rosa
Gender
male
Citizenship
Brazil
Place of birth
Cordisburgo
Place of death
Rio de Janeiro
Occupation
physician
Position held
ambassador
Languages spoken
Esperanto
Image
Guimarães Rosa, anos 1960.jpg
Number of children
2
Show 9 more facts
date of birth
1908-06-27
date of death
1967-11-19
Commons category
Guimarães Rosa
ethnic group
Brazilians
writing language
Portuguese
cause of death
myocardial infarction
manner of death
natural causes
birth name
João Guimarães Rosa
Sources (2)

via Wikidata · CC0

~19 min read

Encyclopedic overview

João Guimarães Rosa (/ˈʒwaʊn ɡiːməˈraɪnz/ ZHWOWN ghee-mə-RYNEZ; Portuguese: [ʒuˈɐ̃w ɡimaˈɾɐ̃jz ˈʁɔzɐ, ˈʒwɐ̃w -]; 27 June 1908 – 19 November 1967) was a Brazilian novelist, short story writer, poet and diplomat.

Rosa only wrote one novel, Grande Sertão: Veredas (known in English as The Devil to Pay in the Backlands), a revolutionary text for its blend of archaic and colloquial prose and frequent use of neologisms, taking inspiration from the spoken language of the Brazilian backlands. For its profoundly philosophical themes, the critic Antonio Candido described the book as a "metaphysical novel". It is often considered to be the Brazilian equivalent of James Joyce's Ulysses. In a 2002, poll by the Bokklubben World Library, "Grande Sertão: Veredas" was named among the best 100 books of all time. Rosa also published four books of short stories in his lifetime, all of them revolving around the life in the sertão, but also addressing themes of universal literature and of existential nature. He died in 1967 — the year he was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature — due to a heart attack.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Guimarães Rosa” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.

Gallery (3)