Carlos Drummond de Andrade

Son of farmers of Portuguese ancestry. Drummond studied in the city of Belo Horizonte and later with the Jesuits at the College de Anchieta Nova Friburgo in Rio de Janeiro, from where he was expelled for "mental insubordination." Back in Belo Horizonte, he began his career as a writer with the Diary of Minas, whose readers included followers of the incipient modernist movement in the State of Minas Gerais.

In 1924 he started to exchange letters with the poet Manuel Bandeira. He also met Blaise Cendrars, Oswald de Andrade, Tarsila do Amaral and Mário de Andrade.

Under pressure from his family to obtain a diploma, he studied pharmacy in the city of Ouro Preto, graduating in 1925. He founded with other writers, The Magazine, which, despite its short life was an important vehicle for affirming Modernism in Minas. He joined the public service and, in 1934, transferred to Rio de Janeiro, where he was the Head of Office for Gustavo Capanema, Minister of Education, until 1945.
Drummond then worked as director at the Service of Historic and Artistic Heritage National and retired in 1962. From 1954 onwards he was also a chronicler in the Morning Post and, from the beginning of 1969, in the Jornal do Brasil.

With Sentimento do Mundo (1940), José (1942) and especially A rosa do Povo (1945), Drummond started his work of contemporary history and collective experience, participating in social and political matters.
The amazing series of masterpieces from these books indicates the full maturity the poet achieved and maintained.

In 1965, he published in collaboration with Manuel Bandeira, “Rio de Janeiro in prose and verse.”

Drummond produced some of the most significant works of Brazilian poetry in the twentieth century. A strong creator of images, his works have as a theme, life and the events of the world, with verses that focus on the individual, homeland, family, friends, and social issues, as well as questions about existence, and about his own poetry.

Several works of the poet were translated into Spanish, English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Swedish and other languages. He wrote hundreds of poems and more than 30 books, including those for children..

He translated to Portuguese the works of several authors like Balzac (Les Paysans, 1845; The Peasants), Choderlos de Laclos (Les Liaisons dangereuses, 1782), Marcel Proust (Le Fugitive, 1925 , García Lorca ( Doña Rosita, the soltera o el lenguaje de las Flores, 1935) Francois Mauriac (Thérèse Desqueyroux, 1927) and Molière (Les Fourberies de Scapin, 1677).

A target of unrestricted admiration, both for his work and for his character as a writer, Carlos Drummond de Andrade died in Rio de Janeiro RJ, on August 17, 1987, a few days after the death of his only daughter, the journalist Maria Julieta Drummond Andrade.