Graça Aranha, José Pereira da (1868–1931)

José Pereira da Graça Aranha (b. 21 June 1868; d. 26 January 1931), Brazilian writer of the premodernist social novel. Graça Aranha was born to an aristocratic Maranhão family and graduated from law school in Recife. While municipal judge in the German settlement of Porto do Cachoeiro in 1890, his observations of the immigrants' struggle inspired the plot for his first and most famous novel, Canaã (1902; Canaan, 1920). Previous to its publication he was elected to a seat on the Brazilian Academy of Letters. From 1900 to 1920 he held diplomatic offices and traveled through many parts of Europe. Upon his return to Brazil he published A estética da vida (1920). Graça Aranha's thesis novels are sociological studies of the contemporary Brazilian problem of assimilation of races and cultures, and philosophical explorations of his theory of universalism and humanitarian evolutionism. His documentary prose contains brilliant descriptions and abstract characters.

Aside from a modest literary production, Graça Aranha's most important contribution is his role in initiating the modernist movement in Brazil. He organized Modern Art Week in 1922 to promote among Brazilian artists a reformation of national thought and sensibility, launching the modernist movement in the arts, which sought to rediscover Brazil in its native elements. He broke with the Academy of Letters in 1924, calling on its members to create a national literature.

See alsoBrazilian Academy of Letters; Race and Ethnicity.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Graça Aranha, Trechos escolhidos por Renato Almeida (1958), esp. pp. 4-19.

João Cruz Costa, "Graça Aranha," in A History of Ideas in Brazil (1964).

Graça Aranha, Obra completa, edited by Afrânio Coutinho (1969), esp. pp. 17-36.

Additional Bibliography

Azevedo, Maria Helena Castro. Um senhor modernista: Biografia de Graça Aranha. Rio de Janeiro: Academia Brasileira de Letras, 2002.

                                    Lori Madden