Rio de Janeiro, 1918 – São Paulo (Brazil), 2017

By Flávio Aguiar

Antonio Candido de Mello e Souza graduated in social sciences from the Faculty of Philosophy, Sciences, and Letters at the University of São Paulo (USP), where he worked until 1958. He engaged in literary criticism since his formative years. Along with Décio de Almeida Prado, Gilda de Mello e Souza, Lourival Gomes Machado, Paulo Emílio Salles Gomes, Ruy Coelho, and others, he founded the magazine Clima, which lasted from 1941 to 1944 and named the group associated with it, later linked to university life.

With professors such as Afrânio Coutinho, José Aderaldo Castello, Guilhermino César, and Benedito Nunes, Antonio Candido was part of a generation that, building on prior traditions, brought criticism and literary studies into the university setting. He also wrote journalistic criticism, having conceived the literary supplement for the newspaper O Estado de S.Paulo, which marked an era in the genre, directed by Décio de Almeida Prado. From 1960 onwards, when he met Uruguayan critic Ángel Rama, he collaborated with him to create a comprehensive view of Latin American literature as part of a systematic and organic process.

He was a founder of the old Brazilian Socialist Party, which was closed during the military dictatorship of 1964, and of the Workers’ Party (PT) during the process of redemocratization in the country. He also co-founded, with Fernando Gasparian, the magazine Argumento in the 1970s, which was also shut down by the dictatorship after its fourth issue.

He received the Camões Prize from Portugal and the Alfonso Reyes Prize from Mexico. He is the author of several books, including Brigada ligeira (1945), Introdução ao método crítico de Sílvio Romero (1945), Formação da literatura brasileira – momentos decisivos (1959), Os parceiros do Rio Bonito (1964), Literatura e sociedade (1965), Introducción a la literatura de Brasil (1968), Tese e antítese (1971), A educação pela noite e outros ensaios (1987), and O discurso e a cidade (1993). Together with Ángel Rama, he conceived the Ayacucho Library, a collection of works by Latin American writers and thinkers, including Brazilians, published in Venezuela starting in 1974. He passed away on May 12, 2017, in São Paulo, at the age of 98.