Biografía:
Recife, 1920 At the age of 18, he started working at the Paula Brito Publisher House where he got the chance of putting out his first poems (A Marmota) in the magazine printed out there. Later on, he began laboring with some romantic writers such as Abreu, Macedo and Bocaiuva, who in return introduced him to the staff of the Diario do Rio de Janeiro. In the 1860s, he wrote most of his comedy plays and poems -still some in a romantic style. In 1869 at the age of 30, he was a renowned writer who had just married Carolina Xavier de Novais, a cultivated Portuguese woman who became his everlasting companion and inspiration for the female character of "Memorial de Aires" (1908). Machado de Assisi also wrote "Contos Fluminenses"(1870), "Resurreição" (1872), "Histórias da Media-Noite" (1873), "A mào e a luva" (1874), "Helena" (1876) and "Laiá Garcia". Some follow-ups were "Histórias sem Data" (1884), "Quincas Borba" (1892), "Dom Casmurro" (1900), "Esaú e Jacó" (1904), "Relíquias da Casa Velha" (1906). His literary career is completed with numerous essays, literary reviews and other works that saw the light of day after his death. This major writer marked by clear-cut European influences, turned Brazilian novels around. Irony and well-thought psychological portraits of the urban society of his time were permanent highlights in his pieces. João Cabral de Melo Neto died in Rio de Janeiro on October 9, 1999.
