The directory «Plots»

Bandeira Manuel
(1886—1968)

Manuel Bandeira was a Brazilian poet. Bandeira wrote over 20 books of poetry and prose. In 1904, he learned that he had tuberculosis, which encouraged him to move from São Paulo to Rio de Janeiro, because of Rio's tropical beach weather. In 1922, after an extended stay in Europe where Bandeira met many prominent authors and painters, he contributed poems of political and social criticism to the Modernist Movement in São Paulo. Bandeira began to publish his most important works in 1924. Bandeira became a respected Brazilian author and wrote articles in several newspapers and magazines, as well as teaching Hispanic Literature in Rio de Janeiro. Bandeira began to translate into Portuguese canonical plays of world literature in 1956, which he continued to do until his last days. He died in Rio de Janeiro.

Bandeira's poems are of a unique delicacy and beauty. Recurrent themes can be found in his works: the love of women, his childhood in the Northeast city of Recife, friends, health problems. His delicate health affected his poems, in a manner similar to the last poems of Jorge Luis Borges. Many of Manuel Bandeira's poems depict the limits of the human body.

Brazil, 1986, Manuel Bandeira