Nélida Piñon

Nélida Piñon

Nélida Piñon (born May 3, 1937) is a Brazilian author and professor. Piñon "is considered among the foremost writers in Brazil today".^[1]

Life[]

Piñon was born in 1937 in Rio de Janeiro. Her parents were Galician immigrants. She studied at the Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro before working as a journalist for the newspaper O Globo and the magazine Cadernos Brasileiros. She has taught writing in workshops and at institutions including Columbia University, Johns Hopkins and the University of Miami, where she has been the Stanford Professor of Humanities.^[1]

Her first novel was Guia-Mapa de Gabriel Arcanjo (The Guidebook of Archangel Gabriel), written in 1961, it concerns a protagonist discussing Christian doctrine with her guardian angel. In the 1970s, she became noted for erotic novels A casa de paixão (The House of Passion) and A força do destino (The Force of Destiny), written in 1977.

In 1984, she had her perhaps greatest success with A Republica dos Sonhos, (The Republic of Dreams). The work involves generations of a family from Galicia who emigrated to Brazil, which relates to her own family's experience.

Among other distinctions, Piñon was awarded the 1995 FIL Award and the 2005 Prince of Asturias Award for literature. She also was the President of Academia Brasileira de Letras (Brazilian Academy of Letters) from 1996 to 1997, and occupied the José Bonifácio Chair of Iberoamerican Affairs of the University of São Paulo in 2015.

Books[]

• Guia-Mapa de Gabriel Arcanjo (The Guidebook of Gabriel Arcanjo) (1961)
• Fundador (Founders) (pre-1971)
• A Casa da Paixão (The House of Passion) (1972)
• A força do destino (The Force of Destiny) (1977)
• The Republic of Dreams, tr. Helen Lane, University of Texas Press (1991), ISBN 0-292-77050-2
• A doce cançao de Caetana (The Sweet Song of Caetana) (1987)

Short stories[]

• I love my husband.
• Big-Bellied Cow
• O Pão de Cada Dia

Awards[]

• Walmap Prize, 1970, for her historical novel, 'Fundador' (Founders)
• Mario de Andrade Prize, 1973, from the Association of Arts Critics in São Paulo for her novel, "A casa de paixão".
• Brazilian Writers’ Union Prize, 1987.
• FIL Award, 1995.
• Menéndez Pelayo International Prize, 2003
• Puterbaugh Conference on World Literature honoree, 2004
• Prince of Asturias Award, 2005

References[]

Further reading[]

• Camargo Namorato, Luciana, et al. "Special Section: Nélida Piñón." World Literature Today, 79.1, April 2005: 7-28. ISSN 0196-3570.
• Piñon, Nélida, and Archive Of Hispanic Literature On Tape. 1979. Audio. Retrieved from the Library of Congress. https://www.loc.gov/item/93842452/
• Piñon, Nélida, 'The Myth of Creation'. In Lives on the Line: The Testimony of Contemporary Latin American Authors, Berkeley: University of California, 1988, pp. 198–204.
• Pontiero, Giovanni, 'Notes on the Fiction of Nelida Piñon', Review (Center for Inter-american Relations), Vol. 17, 1976, pp.67-71.

External links[]

• Culturebase.net
• Nélida Piñón recorded in Rio de Janeiro for the Archive of Literature of the Hispanic Division at the Library of Congress on November 26, 1999.