Mario de Andrade

Mário de Andrade was a Brazilian writer, journalist and editor. He was born in São Paulo, in 1893, and studied at the Music and Drama Conservatory of São Paulo. He published his first work, Fantoches, in 1917, and became one of the most influential writers of the 1920s modernist movement. He wrote novels, short stories, essays, and journalism, exploring themes of identity, language, time, and solitude. He is best known for his novels Macunaíma, Amar, Verbo Intransitivo, and O Banquete. He was also a political activist and a member of the Brazilian Communist Party, and served as a deputy and a minister of culture. He was also a member of the Brazilian Academy of Letters and the Historical and Geographical Institute of Brazil. He wrote several books on Brazilian history and culture, such as História da Música Brasileira and Aspectos da Literatura Brasileira. He died of heart failure in 1945, at the age of 51. He is widely regarded as a master of the Portuguese language and a pioneer of modernist literature in Brazil.