João Guimarães Rosa (born June 27, 1908; died November 19, 1967) was a Brazilian novelist, short story writer, poet, and diplomat. He wrote only one novel, Grande Sertão: Veredas (known in English as The Devil to Pay in the Backlands). This book is notable for mixing old-fashioned and everyday language, as well as using many new words. It was inspired by the speech of people living in the Brazilian backlands. A critic named Antonio Candido called the book a "metaphysical novel" because of its deep philosophical ideas. It is often compared to James Joyce’s Ulysses. In 2002, a poll by the Bokklubben World Library named Grande Sertão: Veredas among the 100 best books of all time. Rosa also wrote four books of short stories, all focusing on life in the sertão, while exploring universal and existential themes. He died in 1967, the same year he was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature, from a heart attack.
Biography
Guimarães Rosa was born in Cordisburgo, in the state of Minas Gerais, as the first of six children to Florduardo Pinto Rosa (nicknamed "seu Fulô") and Francisca Guimarães Rosa ("Chiquitinha"). He taught himself many subjects and learned several languages from a young age, beginning with French before he turned seven. He later said, "I speak: Portuguese, German, French, English, Spanish, Italian, Esperanto, some Russian; I read: Swedish, Dutch, Latin, and Greek (but with a dictionary nearby); I understand some German dialects; I studied the grammar of: Hungarian, Arabic, Sanskrit, Lithuanian, Polish, Tupi, Hebrew, Japanese, Czech, Finnish, Danish; I tried others. But all at a basic level. I think learning other languages helps understand the national language of Brazil better. However, I studied mainly for fun, curiosity, and to stay busy."
As a child, he moved to his grandparents' home in Belo Horizonte, where he completed primary school. He began secondary school at the Santo Antônio School in São João del-Rei but later returned to Belo Horizonte to finish his education. In 1925, at age 16, he enrolled in the College of Medicine at the Federal University of Minas Gerais.
On June 27, 1930, he married Lígia Cabral Penna, a 16-year-old woman, and they had two daughters, Vilma and Agnes. That same year, he graduated and started his medical practice in Itaguara, where he lived for nearly two years. There, Rosa first encountered people from the sertão. With the start of the Constitutionalist Revolution of 1932, Guimarães Rosa volunteered as a doctor for the Public Force (Força Pública), traveling to the Tunel sector in Passa-Quatro, Minas Gerais. There, he met Juscelino Kubitschek, who was then the chief doctor at the Blood Hospital (Hospital de Sangue). Later, he became a civil servant through an exam. In 1933, he moved to Barbacena as a doctor for the 9th Infantry Battalion. Rosa later said that his experiences as a doctor and soldier greatly influenced his development as a writer.
The following year, Rosa began his diplomatic career. In 1938, he worked as an assistant consul in Hamburg, Germany, where he met his future second wife, Aracy de Carvalho Guimarães Rosa. She was the only Brazilian woman officially honored with the title of Righteous Among the Nations for helping Jews escape the Third Reich.
In 1963, he was chosen unanimously to join the Brazilian Academy of Letters (Academia Brasileira de Letras) on his second attempt. After delaying his acceptance for four years, he finally took his position in 1967, just three days before dying in Rio de Janeiro from a heart attack. He passed away at the height of his diplomatic and literary career.
Work
Guimarães Rosa began writing poetry, but his only book of poems, Magma, was abandoned by him and published only after his death. Instead, Rosa focused on writing stories. In 1938, he entered a contest with a collection of twelve short stories. The contest was judged by Graciliano Ramos, a well-known writer. Ramos did not give Rosa the first prize. Later, Ramos explained that while he saw talent in Rosa’s work, he thought the stories had uneven quality and long, confusing parts that made the collection seem immature. Rosa worked hard to improve his stories and finally published them in 1946 as Sagarana.
Rosa’s writing style in Sagarana is very different from Ramos’s. Ramos wrote in a simple, direct way, while Rosa used rich, detailed language and explored the Portuguese language creatively. Ramos praised these qualities in Rosa’s work.
The word Sagarana is made by combining saga (which means a story or legend in Portuguese) and rana (a word from the Tupi language meaning “in the manner of”). So, Sagarana means “stories in the style of folk legends.” The book includes nine short stories, three fewer than the original collection Rosa submitted to the contest eight years earlier. All the stories are set in the sertão, the dry, remote interior of Brazil, and many focus on jagunços, figures who act as soldiers for farmers and help maintain order in the backlands. Rosa used these characters to explore themes of bravery and faith as key parts of life. Antonio Candido, a literary critic, compared this approach to how medieval knights were portrayed in stories.
Rosa included details about the sertão in his stories. He used the dialect spoken by the people of the sertão, called sertanejos, including their words and traditions. He also described the land and animals of the region, such as birds and cattle, to create vivid scenes. These descriptions not only show the setting but also help tell the story and symbolize ideas like loneliness and the search for meaning. For example, in the story São Marcos, Rosa blends descriptions of nature with stories about witchcraft. In O Burrinho Pedrês, he uses sounds and word patterns to mimic the rhythm of traditional songs and the noises of cattle. These techniques became a major part of Rosa’s writing style.
The most famous story in Sagarana is A Hora e Vez de Augusto Matraga (“The Time and Turn of Augusto Matraga”), which Rosa called the “key” to the collection. It tells the story of Augusto Esteves, a wealthy man who is cruel and lives a life of sin. After being betrayed and badly hurt, Augusto is rescued by two old sertanejos. A priest tells him that everyone has a moment of salvation. Augusto decides to live a good life, helping others and working on a farm. He becomes friends with a jagunço leader, but refuses to join his group to focus on his spiritual journey.
Later, Augusto sees the beauty of nature and feels inspired to find his “time and turn.” He searches for meaning in the sertão and eventually faces a deadly fight with the jagunço leader he once knew. Through this struggle, Augusto achieves a kind of spiritual transformation.
Rosa’s next book, Corpo de Baile (“Corps de Ballet”), was published in 1956. The collection was divided into three parts for the second edition: Noites do Sertão (“Nights of the Sertão”), Manuelzão e Miguelim (a play on names meaning “Big Manuel and Little Miguel”), and No Urubuquaquá, no Pinhém (“In the Urubuquaquá, in the Pinhém”). These parts are often published separately today.
The original structure of Corpo de Baile was changed, even though Rosa approved of the decision. The title refers to a group of symbols and ideas that appear throughout the seven short stories, connecting them in complex ways. These recurring elements help create a single, unified meaning in the book. For example, the story Recado do Morro (“Message from the Hills”) is placed in the middle of the collection and shows how the language of the sertão is used.
In Recado do Morro, five sertanejos guide a German naturalist through Minas Gerais. At the same time, a mysterious message spreads through the region. The message starts with a madman in the hills and is passed down through different people, changing slightly each time. Eventually, the message reaches a poet named Laudelim, who turns it into a ballad. The message is a warning to the group’s leader, Pedro Orósio, a strong and attractive man.