Carlos Heitor Cony (1926-2018) was a prominent Brazilian journalist and writer. About his work, he left seventeen novels, short stories, chronicles, biographical essays, children and adolescents and much more. Winner of several members, he was a member of the Brazilian Academy of Letters.
Biography
He was born in Rio de Janeiro on March 14, 1926. The fact that he had diction problems prevented him from entering school, which is why he learned to read and write with his father.
On the eve of turning 12, he enters the Archdiocesan Seminary of São José, where he is awarded among the best students at the end of the school year.
Years later, he enrolled in the Literature course at the National Faculty of Philosophy, but did not finish the course. Helping his father at Jornal do Brasil in 1946, he became editor of Gazeta de Notícias the following year.
In 1952 he is the editor of the radio Jornal do Brasil and in 1955 he begins to write the novel Cadernos do Fundo do Abismo , but without ever ending it, he begins the novel O Ventre , which he entered in a literature contest under a pseudonym.
The novel is considered the best, but does not receive the prize. Therefore, it is alleged that the novel has a rude language and carries negativism.
Longing for the Manuel Antônio de Almeida award, he entered the contest again after writing a new novel in just nine days. The Truth of Every Day , under the pseudonym Isaías Caminha, is the winner. The same is true of the novel that follows, Brick of Security , also a winner, now with the pseudonym José Bálsamo.
In 1963 he launched, with other authors (Guimarães Rosa, Otto Lara Resende, Lygia Fagundes Telles, José Condé, Guilherme Figueiredo and Mário Donato), Os Sete Pecados Capitais . And, in the same year, he started writing on the daily Folha de S. Paulo Opinion page, taking turns with Cecília Meireles.
In 1965 he wrote a novel, which began to be broadcast on TV-Rio until it was censored. In the same year he is arrested, spending twenty days in the Federal Police. In 1968 he was imprisoned again for a few days.
In the 1980s, he began to direct the magazine Fatos e Fotos , accompanied Pope John Paul II on his visit to Brazil and became the superintendent of Rede Manchete’s television drama.
It was in the 90s that he returned to collaborate with Folha de S. Paulo and that he once again accompanies the visit of Pope John Paul II.
In 1996, he won the Machado de Assis award from the Brazilian Academy of Letters, for his work as a whole, and the Jabuti Award, from the Brazilian Book Chamber, with Almost Memory .
The following year, it is time to win the National Nestlé Literature Award. The same is achieved with the novel O Piano ea Orquestra , in the category of “consecrated author”. Still in 1997 launches A Casa do Poeta Trágico , which was elected the book of the year, winning the Jabuti award.
In 1998, he received a gentleman’s degree from the Ordre des Arts and des Lettres , in Paris.
In 2000, he joined the Academia Brasileira de Letras, where he occupied chair number 3. In the same year, he won the Jabuti Award for Romance Without Words again .
He dies on January 5, 2018, aged 91, victim of multiple organ failure.
Construction
Affairs
- The Womb (1958)
- The Truth of Every Day (1959)
- Safety Brick (1960)
- Information to the Crucified (1961)
- Matter of Memory (1962)
- Before the Summer (1964)
- White Ballet (1965)
- Pesach: the Crossing (1967)
- Pilate (1973)
- Almost Memory (1995)
- The Piano and the Orchestra (1996)
- The House of the Tragic Poet (1997)
- Romance without Words (1999)
- The Nominee (2001)
- The Afternoon of Your Absence (2003)
- The Advance of the Hour (2006)
- Death and Life (2007)
Tales
- Fifteen Years (1965)
- About All Things (1968)
- Babylon! Babylon! (1978)
- Bourgeois and Crime (1997)
Chronicles
- The Art of Speaking Badly (1963)
- The Act and the Fact (1964)
- Tour Six (1965)
- The Oldest Years of the Past (1998)
- The Harem of Banana Trees (1999)
- Everything and Nothing (2004)
- Me, to pieces (2010)
Biographical Essays
- Charles Chaplin (1965)
- Who Killed Vargas (1972)
- JK – Exile Memorial (1982)
- Teruz (1985)
- Chaplin and Other Essays (2012)
- JK and the Dictatorship (2012)
Children and youth
- Fifteen Years (1965)
- A Love Story (1977)
- The Brother You Gave Me (1979)
- Rose, Vegetable of Blood (1979)
- The Fat Lady and the Return Over (1986)
- Luciana Saudade (1989)
- The Pink Bow (2002)
- Vera Summer (2014)
Phrases
- ” Nostalgia is longing for what I have lived, melancholy is longing for what I have not lived. “
- ” Man cannot betray the writer, but the writer must always betray the man. When he assumes the status of a writer, he must be above the man. “
- ” Did the monkey get better or was it the man who got worse? “
- ” Young heads were made to hit walls. Almost all of them manage to survive. “
- ” Bikinis and messages should be short to pique interest and long enough to cover the object. “