What major works written in Portuguese (Portugal or Brazil) are masterpieces that should be more well-known? What books do the Brazilian kids HAVE to read in school, like they have to read "To Kill a Mockingbird" or "Catcher in the Rye" or some Dickens or Jane Austen in the Unites States?
Port/Brazilian Literature that everyone ought to know
Don't listen to Penetra. Paulo Coelho is as insipid and boring as a writer could be. It's literature for the little-educated. I wouldn't even call it literature.
I'm afraid that Portuguese does not have brilliant writers unlike Spanish.
For Brazilian MODERNIST literature try: Mário de Andrade (Macunaíma):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VI99UGYha_M
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VI99UGYha_M
Has a Brazilian writer even won the Nobel Prize for Literature or achieved any such high distinction?
<< Paulo Coelho is as insipid and boring as a writer could be>>
Aren't most great writers insipid and boring most of the time?
Aren't most great writers insipid and boring most of the time?
My favorites are Gregório de Matos, Gonçalves Dias, Machado de Assis, Aluísio Azevedo, Cruz e Souza, Raul Pompéia, Euclides da Cunha, Lima Barreto, Oswald de Andrade, Graciliano Ramos. Others with some works I like are Joaquim Manuel de Macedo, José de Alencar, Castro Alves, Mário de Andrade, Tomás Antônio Gonzaga.
A selection concerning contemporary age (since late XIX c.). Try and enjoy!
Fiction from Brazil: Machado de Assis, Raul Pompéia, Osvaldo de Andrade, Érico Veríssimo, Clarice Lispector, João Guimarães Rosa, Ruben Fonseca, João Ubaldo Ribeiro
Poetry from Brazil: Manuel Bandeira, João Cabral de Melo Neto, Carlos Drummond de Andrade, Antônio Cícero
Fiction from Portugal: Eça de Queirós, Raul Brandão, Vitorino Nemésio, Jorge de Sena, Agustina Bessa Luís, José Cardoso Pires, Carlos de Oliveira, José Saramago, Mário de Carvalho
Poetry from Portugal: Cesário Verde, Camilo Pessanha, Mário de Sá Carneiro, Fernando Pessoa, Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen, Alexandre O'Neill, Jorge de Sena, Herberto Hélder, Fiama Hasse Pais Brandão, Ruy Belo, Eugénio de Andrade
Fiction from Brazil: Machado de Assis, Raul Pompéia, Osvaldo de Andrade, Érico Veríssimo, Clarice Lispector, João Guimarães Rosa, Ruben Fonseca, João Ubaldo Ribeiro
Poetry from Brazil: Manuel Bandeira, João Cabral de Melo Neto, Carlos Drummond de Andrade, Antônio Cícero
Fiction from Portugal: Eça de Queirós, Raul Brandão, Vitorino Nemésio, Jorge de Sena, Agustina Bessa Luís, José Cardoso Pires, Carlos de Oliveira, José Saramago, Mário de Carvalho
Poetry from Portugal: Cesário Verde, Camilo Pessanha, Mário de Sá Carneiro, Fernando Pessoa, Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen, Alexandre O'Neill, Jorge de Sena, Herberto Hélder, Fiama Hasse Pais Brandão, Ruy Belo, Eugénio de Andrade