Nélida Piñon

Nélida Piñon (3 May 1937 – 17 December 2022) was a Brazilian author and professor. At the time of her death, Piñon was "considered among the foremost writers in Brazil today".^[1]

Life

Nélida Cuiñas Piñon was born in 1937 in the middle class Vila Isabel area of Rio de Janeiro to Olivia Carmen Cuíñas Piñón, a homemaker and Lino Piñón Muíños, a merchant. Her mother was the child of Galician immigrants, her father a first generation Galician immigrant.^[2]

She studied at the Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro before working as a journalist for the newspaper O Globo and the magazine Cadernos Brasileiros. She has taught writing in workshops and institutions including Columbia University, Johns Hopkins and the University of Miami, where she had been the Stanford Professor of Humanities.^[1]

Her first novel was Guia-Mapa de Gabriel Arcanjo (The Guidebook of Archangel Gabriel), written in 1961. It concerns a protagonist discussing Christian doctrine with her guardian angel. In the 1970s, she became noted for erotic novels A casa de paixão (The House of Passion), published in 1972, and A força do destino (The Force of Destiny), published in 1977.^{[page needed]}

In 1984, she had, perhaps her greatest success, with A República dos Sonhos, (The Republic of Dreams). The work involves generations of a family from Galicia, who emigrated to Brazil, which stemmed from her own family's experience.

Among other distinctions, Piñon was awarded the 1995 FIL Award and the 2005 Prince of Asturias Award for literature. She also was the President of Academia Brasileira de Letras (Brazilian Academy of Letters) from 1996 to 1997, and occupied the José Bonifácio Chair of Iberoamerican Affairs of the University of São Paulo in 2015. She received Spanish citizenship in 2021 from the Royal Decree.^[3]

Piñon died on 17 December 2022, at the age of 85, in Lisbon.^[4]^[5]

Books

Library resources about
Nélida Piñon

By Nélida Piñon

Guia-Mapa de Gabriel Arcanjo (The Guidebook of Gabriel Arcanjo) (1961)
Fundador (Founders) (pre-1971)
A Casa da Paixão (The House of Passion) (1972)
A força do destino (The Force of Destiny) (1977)
The Republic of Dreams, tr. Helen Lane, University of Texas Press (1991), ISBN 0-292-77050-2
A doce canção de Caetana (The Sweet Song of Caetana) (1987)
Vozes do Deserto (2006)
Coração Andarilho (2009)
O Livro das Horas (2012)
Filhos da América (2016)
Uma Furtiva Lágrima (2019)
Um dia Chegarei a Sagres (2020)

Short stories

I love my husband.
Big-Bellied Cow
O Pão de Cada Dia

Awards

Walmap Prize, 1970, for her historical novel, 'Fundador' (Founders)
Mario de Andrade Prize, 1973, from the Association of Arts Critics in São Paulo for her novel, "A casa de paixão"
Brazilian Writers’ Union Prize, 1987
FIL Award, 1995.
Menéndez Pelayo International Prize, 2003
Puterbaugh Conference on World Literature honoree, 2004
Prince of Asturias Award, 2005

References

^ ^a ^b Fister, Barbara (1995). "Piñon, Nelida". Third World Women's Literatures: A Dictionary and Guide to Materials in English. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 241. ISBN 978-0-313-28988-0.
^ Ionova, Ana (2022-12-27). "Nélida Piñon, Provocative Brazilian Novelist, Is Dead at 85". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2022-12-29.
^ Real Decreto 1018/2021, de 16 de noviembre, por el que se concede la nacionalidad española por carta de naturaleza a doña Nélida Cuiñas Piñón.
^ "Morre Nélida Piñon, escritora integrante da Academia Brasileira de Letras". O Globo. 17 December 2022. Retrieved 20 December 2022.
^ "Brazil literary great Nelida Pinon dies at 85". Reuters. 17 December 2022. Retrieved 20 December 2022.

External links

Culturebase.net
Nélida Piñón recorded in Rio de Janeiro for the Archive of Literature of the Hispanic Division at the Library of Congress on November 26, 1999.

[Fister1995-1] Fister, Barbara (1995). "Piñon, Nelida". Third World Women's Literatures: A Dictionary and Guide to Materials in English. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 241. ISBN 978-0-313-28988-0.

[2] Ionova, Ana (2022-12-27). "Nélida Piñon, Provocative Brazilian Novelist, Is Dead at 85". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2022-12-29.

[3] Real Decreto 1018/2021, de 16 de noviembre, por el que se concede la nacionalidad española por carta de naturaleza a doña Nélida Cuiñas Piñón.

[4] "Morre Nélida Piñon, escritora integrante da Academia Brasileira de Letras". O Globo. 17 December 2022. Retrieved 20 December 2022.

[5] "Brazil literary great Nelida Pinon dies at 85". Reuters. 17 December 2022. Retrieved 20 December 2022.

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