Louzeiro, José 1932–

PERSONAL: Born September 19, 1932, in São Luís, Maranhão, Brazil.

ADDRESSES: Agent—Editora Nova Fronteira, A/C: Departamento Editorial, Rua Bambina, 25 Botafogo, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

CAREER: Journalist, short-story writer, screenwriter, novelist, and author of children's books.

WRITINGS:

Depois da luta (stories), Organização Simões (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), 1958, reprinted, Editora Record (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), 1980.

Acusado de homicídio (fiction), Sávio Antunes (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), 1960, reprinted, Nosso Tempo (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), 1976.

Judas arrependido (stories), José Alvaro (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), 1968, reprinted, Editora Record (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), 1980.

André Rebouças (biography), Editora Tempo Brasileiro (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), 1968.

Lúcio Flávio, o passageiro da agonia (fiction), Civilização Brasileira (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), 1975, 9th edition, Editora Nova Frontiera (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), 1985.

O estrangulador da Lapa (fiction), Cedibra (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), 1976.

Aracelli, meu amor: um anjo espera a justiça dos homens, Civilização Brasileira (Rio de Janeiro), 1976, 4th edition, Editora Record (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), 1981.

Infância dos mortos (novel), Editora Record (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), 1977, 5th edition published as Pixote: infância dos mortos (title means "Pixote: The Law of the Weakest"), Global Editora (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), 1987, reprinted, Ediouro (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), 1999, translation by Ladyce Pompeo de Barros published as Childhood of the Dead (e-book), Boson Books (Raleigh, NC), 2005.

Os amores da pantera (novel), Nosso Tempo (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), 1977.

O estranho hábito de viver (novel), Editora Record (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), 1978.

Parceiros da aventura (screenplay), Editora Record (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), 1979.

Em carne viva (fiction), Editora Record (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), 1980.

Fruto do amor (screenplay), Editora Record (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), 1980.

20 axioma (fiction), Editora Record (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), 1980.

Sociedade secreta (fiction), Editora (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), 1980.

M20: as aventuras do audaz perito Jesuíno Conde e do seu intempestivo auxiliar Manga-Rosa (novel), Editora Record (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), 1981.

José Louzeiro (collection; criticism), edited by Antônio Roberto Espinosa and others, Abril Educação (São Paulo, Brazil), 1982.

O verão dos perseguidos (fiction), Editora Record (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), 1983.

(With others) O homem da capa preta (film), Tchê! (Porto Alegre, Brazil), 1987.

Devotos do ódio (novel), Global Editora (São Paulo, Brazil), 1987, translation by Ted Stroll published as Land of Black Clay (e-book), Boson Books (Raleigh, NC), 2005.

Em carne viva (fiction), Editora Clube do Livro (São Paulo, Brazil), 1988.

Ritinha temporal (fiction), Editora Nova Fronteira (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), 1991.

Mito em chamas: a lenda do justiceiro Mão Branca (fiction), Editora Moderna (São Paulo, Brazil), 1997.

(With Lenin Novaes) Elza Soares: cantando para não enlouquercer (biography), Editora Globo (São Paulo, Brazil), 1997.

Villa-Lobos: o aprendiz de feiticeiro (biography), 2nd edition, Ediouro (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), 1997.

Urca: o bairro sonhado (history), Relume Dumará (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), 2000.

O anjo da fidelidade: a história sincera de Gregório Fortunato na Era Vargas (history), F. Alves (Rio de Janerio, Brazil), 2000.

Ana Néri, a brasileira que venceu a guerra (fiction), Mondrian (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), 2002.

Screenwriter for Brazilian film and television; contributor to periodicals, including Brazil News.

FOR CHILDREN

A gang do Beijo (fiction), Editora Nova Fronteira (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), 1984.

O bezerro de ouro: uma aventura da Gang do beijo (fiction), Editora Nova Fronteira (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), 1986.

Praça das dores (fiction), Salamandra (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), 1994.

JK: o otimismo em pessoa (fiction), Ediouro (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), 1996.

A fina flor da sedução (fiction), Nova Fronteira (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), 2001.

ADAPTATIONS: Pixote: infância dos mortos was adapted for film as Pixote: The Law of the Weakest.

SIDELIGHTS: José Louzeiro was born in the farnorthern Brazilian state of Maranhão, and moved to Rio de Janeiro in his early twenties. His first published book, Depois da luta, is a collection of stories. He has also written in the genres of screenwriting, novels, and children's fiction but is most well known for his journalistic novels, including Pixote: infância dos mortos, which is based on his investigative reporting of abandoned street children. The novel was also adapted for film and translated as Childhood of the Dead. Louzeiro has written a number of detective novels featuring the characters of Jesuíno Conde and his assistant Manga Rosa. The novel Devotos do ódio, which portrays corruption by landowners, was translated as Land of Black Clay.

Two of Louzeiro's works from the 1970s, Lúcio Flávio, o passageiro da agonia and Aracelli, meu amor: um anjo espera a justiça dos homens, are examples of the romance-reportagem genre through which Louzeiro treats the social injustices and repression of Brazil's dictatorship years. The former details the life of an infamous criminal, and through the story, Louzeiro reveals details about police corruption and the secret death squads and their roles in Brazilian society. According to Randal Johnson in the Luso-Brazilian Review, Louzeiro embraces this documentary-style fiction because "prior to that time … his writing had been 'excessively intellectual' and distanced from what the writer has since felt to be the intellectual's social responsibility."

According to Johnson, Pixote is based on the Camanducaia incident, "in which dozens of imprisoned minors were taken from Rio de Janeiro jails and literally dumped over a cliff near a town called Camanducaia in the state of Minas Gerais. It is a denunciation of a violent, hierarchical and closed society that forces many homeless or less fortunate children into a life of crime."

Louzeiro's more-recent novels "deal with the underside of the nation's contemporary urban scene: corruption, hypocrisy, socioeconomic imbalance, poverty, injustice, crime, and violence," wrote Malcolm Silverman in World Literature Today. "Furthermore, given his stark, naturalistic bent, forged throughout a long journalistic career, narratives routinely end in a tragic manner both for victims and victimizers of Brazil's capitalist jungle."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Moreira, Neiva, A pilão da madrugada: um depoimento a José Louzeiro, Editora Terceiro Mundo (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), 1989.

PERIODICALS

Luso-Brazilian Review, winter, 1987, Randal Johnson, "The Romance-Reportagem and the Cinema: Babenco's Lúcio Flávio and Pixote: infância dos mortos," pp. 35-48.

Publishers Weekly, October 2, 2000, review of Land of Black Clay, p. 50.

World Literature Today, winter, 1988, Malcolm Silverman, review of Devotos do ódio pp. 106-107.