Lins do Rego, José

Lins do Rego, José:

see Rego, José Lins doRego, José Lins do
, 1901–57, Brazilian novelist. His fame rests largely on his semiautobiographical "sugarcane cycle," dealing with social transformation in the Brazilian northeast. The first of the series, Menino de engenho (tr.
..... Click the link for more information.
.

Lins do Rêgo, José

 

Born July 3, 1901, in Pilar, Paraíba; died Sept. 12, 1957, in Rio de Janeiro. Brazilian writer.

Lins do Rêgo grew up on his grandfather’s sugar plantation. He was trained in medicine. His “sugarcane series” of novels comprised Plantation Lad (1932), Daffy Boy (1933), Old Plantation (1934), Black Boy Richard (1935; Russian translation, 1937), and The Sugar Refinery (1936). The works revealed his affinity with the regionalists, who strove to study the specific problems of each region of Brazil. The main features of critical realism in his writing are the interest in the acute social conflicts in the Brazilian countryside and the portrayal of man in his natural milieu.

In the late 1930’s, Lins do Rêgo experienced an artistic crisis caused by the establishment of a reactionary dictatorship in Brazil in 1937. This was reflected in the mystical and psychoanalytic aspects of such novels as Purity (1937) and The Mother of Water (1941). He returned to a realistic portrayal of the life of the people and created his major works, Pedra Bonita (1938), Dead Fire (1943; Russian translation, 1967), and Cangaceiro (1953; Russian translation, 1960.)

WORKS

Romances reunidos e ilustrados [vols. 1–5]. Rio de Janeiro, 1960–61.

REFERENCES

Terterian, I. A. Brazil’skii roman XX veka. Moscow, 1965.
Ellison, F. Brazil’s New Novel Berkeley-Los Angeles, 1954.
Castello, J. A. José Lins do Rêgo: Modernismo e regionalismo. Rio de Janeiro, 1961.

I. A. TERTERIAN