Queiroz, Rachel de (1910–2003)

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Queiroz, Rachel de (1910–2003)

Rachel de Queiroz (b. 17 November 1910; d. 4 November 2003), Brazilian novelist and journalist. Born in Fortaleza, Ceará, and reared on her father's ranch in the sertão, Rachel de Queiroz returns to the Northeastern region of Brazil in her literature. Educated in a convent school to be a teacher, she became a journalist in 1927 and has written for several newspapers and magazines. Her career as a novelist began when she published O quinze (1930) at age twenty. Although she is also a dramatist, chronicler, translator, and writer of children's literature, O quinze remains her most noted work. It placed her in the mainstream of the Northeastern regional novelists who documented the human, social, and geographical complexity of the Brazilian sertão. O quinze is a realistic drama told through one family's struggle to survive the disastrous consequences of the drought of 1915, which had in fact caused Queiroz's family to flee to Rio de Janeiro.

Other novels include João Miguel (1932), Caminho de pedras (1937), As três Marias (1939; The Three Marias, 1963), Dôra, Doralina (1975; Dora, Doralina, 1984), and Memorial de Maria Moura (1992). Much of Queiroz's fiction addresses social problems associated with banditry and religious fanaticism in the sertâo, such as in the dramas Lampião (1953) and A beata Maria do Egito (1958). Towards the end of her career she co-authored two texts with her sister Maria Luiza Tantos anos (1996) a book of memories and Não me Deixes—Suas histórias e sua cozinha (2000). Her special talent is illustrated in her portrayals of feminine characters who question their traditional roles in society and the family, but these sociological aspects form only a backdrop to situations and individual characters. Her literature incorporates simplicity of style and language.

Her limited political activity included a diplomatic mission to the United Nations on the Commission for Human Rights in 1966. Throughout her journalistic career, Queiroz continued to write crônicas (short prose pieces), published in several collections. In 1957 she received the Machado de Assis award for her body of work, and she was the first woman to be admitted to the Brazilian Academy of Letters, in 1977. Upon her death in 2003 she left the book Visoes: Maurício Albano e Rachel de Queiroz pending publication.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Almir De Andrade, Aspetos da cultura brasileira (1939), pp. 107-121.

Fred P. Ellison, "Rachel de Queiroz," in Brazil's New Novel: Four Northeastern Masters (1954), and "Introduction" in Queiroz's The Three Marias (1963).

Adonias Filho, "Rachel de Queiroz," in O romance brasileiro de 30 (1969).