José de Alencar

José Martiniano de Alencar ( born May 1, 1829 in Mecejana, near Fortaleza in Brazil, † December 12, 1877 ) was a Brazilian writer.

The son of the influential Senator José de Alencar Martiano was one of the most important representatives of Brazilian Romanticism. From 1840 to 1850 he studied Law in Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo and Pernambuco and was then settled in Rio de Janeiro, where he wrote for several magazines. When publishing some articles in the Correio Mercantil he was denied, he decided henceforth to be his own master, and bought with some friends the newspaper Diario do Rio de Janeiro. Here he published as chief editor of his first novels Cinco Minutos (1856 ) and A viuvinha ( 1857). In 1857 appeared one of his most important works, O Guarani, first part of a trilogy about the indigenous people of Brazil, the 1865 Iracema, an identity-defining novel for the Brazilian people, and should follow in 1874 Ubirajara.

Alencar was a convinced Brazilians and has used in his work for the independence of his native land. So it was definitely a personal highlight, as he 1877 Dom Pedro II, the second emperor of independent Brazil officially since 1822, ascended to minister. However, a position he was able to exercise only for a short time because he died due to tuberculosis disease on 12 December 1877.

Machado de Assis chose him in the establishment of the Academia Brasileira de Letras 1897 patron of the chair 23, which is considered particularly prestigious ever since.