Monteiro Lobato

José Bento Renato Monteiro Lobato (April 18, 1882 – July 4, 1948) was one of Brazil's most influential writers, mostly for his children's books set in the fictional Sítio do Picapau Amarelo (Yellow Woodpecker Farm) but he had been previously a prolific writer of fiction, a translator and an art critic. He also founded one of Brazil's first publishing houses (Companhia Editora Nacional) and was a supporter of nationalism.
Lobato was born in Taubaté, São Paulo. He is best known for a set of educational but entertaining children's books, which comprise about half of his production. The other half, consisting of a number of novels and short tales for adult readers, was less popular but marked a watershed in Brazilian literature.
Biography.
Most of his children books were set in the "Sítio do Picapau Amarelo" ("Yellow Woodpecker Farm" or "Yellow Woodpecker Ranch"), a small farm in the countryside, and featured the elderly ranch owner "Dona Benta" ("Mrs. Benta"), her two grandchildren – a girl, "Lúcia" ("Lucia") who is always referred to only by her nickname, "Narizinho" ("Little Nose", because she had a turned-up nose) and a boy, "Pedrinho" ("Little Pete") — and a black servant and cook, "Tia Nastácia" ("Aunt Anastacia"). These real characters were complemented by entities created or animated by the children's imagination: the irreverent rag doll "Emília" ("Emilia") and the aristocratic and learned puppet made of corncob "Visconde de Sabugosa" (roughly "Viscount Corncob"), the cow "Mocha", the donkey "Conselheiro" ("Counsellor"), the pig "Rabicó" ("Short-Tail") and the rhinoceros "Quindim" (Quindim is a Brazilian dessert), "Saci Pererê" (a black, pipe-smoking, one-legged character of Brazilian folklore) and Cuca (an evil monster invoked by Brazilian mothers at night to convince their kids to go to bed). However the adventures mostly develop elsewhere: either in fantasy worlds invented by the children, or in stories told by Dona Benta in evening sessions. These three universes are deftly intertwined so that the stories or myths told by the grandmother naturally become the setting for make-believe play, punctuated by routine farm events.
Many of these books are educational, teaching things through the mouth of Mrs. Benta and by smart questions and remarks, by her small and attentive audience. They addressed subjects which children normally do not like at school, such as mathematics, grammar, national and world history, geography, astronomy, Greek mythology, and so on. In other books, the author, who was a skeptic, a rationalist, an internationalist and had anti-war positions (but at the same time being strongly patriotic and conservative), passes his views on the world, humanity and politics to his children readers. In other books, he tells in an easy to understand way the classics of literature, such as Aesop's fables, Don Quixote and Peter Pan.
He created a rich crossover using elements from many sources, literature, movies, mythology and cartoons. He was widely imaginative, such as in his books "A Chave do Tamanho" ("The Sizing Switch") and "A Reforma da Natureza" ("Reforming Nature"), where he speculated on the consequences of all humans suddenly decreasing in size, and on what would happen if Emilia and Viscount would get hold of a scientific method to change the genes of animals and plants for rational or irrational purposes, with catastrophic results.
Monteiro Lobato's books were turned into widely popular TV programs. Including five series of Sítio do Picapau Amarelo adventures, one in 1952 on TV Tupi, another in 1964 on TV Cultura, and in 1967 on Rede Bandeirantes, another on Rede Globo in 1977, and the last version in 2001 also on Rede Globo. The last is known in other countries under the title "Pirlimpimpim". In 2012 "Rede Globo" and Brazilian producer "Mixer" was to produce an animated series inspired by Lobato's children's books.
Lobato was also an influential journalist and publisher and wrote regularly for several newspapers and magazines, and was a noted and respected art critic. In fact, he provoked a public controversy when he harshly criticized the writers, poets, painters and musicians, who, in 1922 promoted a Modern Art Week (Semana da Arte Moderna), which was also a watershed event in Brazilian culture in the 20th century. In 1919, he acquired the "Revista do Brasil," one of the first Brazilian cultural magazines, and founded, in 1920, his own publishing house. Later, he helped to found and was a partner in two of the most important independent Brazilian publishing houses, the "Companhia Nacional" and the "Editora Brasiliense".
Politically, Lobato was strongly in favor of a state monopoly for iron and oil exploration in Brazil and battled publicly for it between 1931 and 1939. For his libertarian views, he was arrested by the then dictatorial government of Getúlio Vargas in 1941. This movement, called "O Petróleo é Nosso" (Oil Belongs to Us) was highly successful, and the same Getúlio Vargas, after being democratically elected president, created Petrobras in 1952.
Lobato founded a cultural and literary magazine, "Fundamentos", which existed between 1948 and 1955. He died in São Paulo in 1948.
Political ideas.
Racism in his Work and Thoughts.
Monteiro Lobato, after his death, has been accused of racism due to the portrayal and treatment of black people in several of his works. In 2010 a Brazilian educator attempted to legally ban "Caçadas de Pedrinho" from Brazilian junior schools for the prejudiced narrative and terms contained in the novel. For example, Lobato describes Aunt Nastácia (a mulatta), climbing up "the pole of Saint Pedro as an old monkey", and that "no one would escape" the jaguars attack, "neither Aunt Nastácia, of black flesh."
An academic analysis made by the Instituto de Pesquisas e Estudos Sociais at the Rio de Janeiro State University reportedly has proven that Monteiro Lobato was a "dangerously influential racist working on the scholastic area", and cites a letter Lobato sent to Toledo Neiva, in which he complains about "a country [Brazil] where men don't have strength enough to organize a Ku Klux Klan", and comparing it to the United States by mentioning André Siegfried, "glad that they're not a second Brazil. Some day, justice will be done to the Ku Klux Klan."
Bibliography.
Collections.
(*) Published posthumously.