José Oswald de Souza Andrade was a Brazilian poet, novelist and cultural critic. He was born in, spent most of his life in, and died in São Paulo.
Bolsa Família is the current social welfare program of the Government of Brazil, part of the Fome Zero network of federal assistance programs. Bolsa Família provided financial aid to poor Brazilian families. In order to be eligible, families had to ensure that children attend school and get vaccinated. If they exceeded the total of permitted school absences, they were dropped from the program and their funds were suspended. The program attempted to both reduce short-term poverty by direct cash transfers and fight long-term poverty by increasing human capital among the poor through conditional cash transfers. It also worked to give free education to children who couldn't afford to go to school, to show the importance of education. In 2008, The Economist described Bolsa Família as an "anti-poverty scheme invented in Latin America [which] is winning converts worldwide." The program was a centerpiece of former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's social policy and is reputed to have played a role in his victory in the general election of 2006. Bolsa Família was the largest conditional cash transfer program in the world, though the Mexican Oportunidades was the first nationwide program of this kind.
João Almino is a Brazilian novelist. He is the author of The Brasília Quintet, which consists of the novels Ideas on Where to Spend the End of the World, Samba-Enredo, The Five Seasons of Love ; The Book of Emotions and Cidade Livre. His 2015 novel Enigmas da Primavera was published in English in 2016 by Dalkey Archive Press and won the Jabuti Award for Best Brazilian Book in translation. His seventh novel was published in November 2017 in Brazil: Entre facas, algodão. His most recent novel, Homem de Papel, was published in 2022. He has also authored books of philosophical and literary essays. He taught at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), at the University of Brasília (UnB), the Instituto Rio Branco, Berkeley, Stanford and The University of Chicago. In 2017, he was elected as one of the 40 members of the Brazilian Academy of Letters.
In Brazil, the National Truth Commission investigated human rights violations of the period of 1946–1988 - in particular by the authoritarian military dictatorship that ruled Brazil from April 1, 1964 to March 15, 1985.
Eugênio Bucci (Orlândia) is a Brazilian journalist, known for his works at many Brazilian publications and also for his time as president of Radiobras.
Benjamin Abdala Júnior is a Brazilian writer, scholar, and literary critic. His first book, A Escrita Neo-Realista, was published in 1981. He published the book Antologia da Poesia Brasileira - Realismo/Parnasianismo in 1985. He has written over 40 published books and hundreds of chapters in book collection,articles in newspapers and literary magazines .He has worked with the main Brazilian Scientific Agencies evaluating scholarships and grants requested by researchers from the main Brazilian universities. Benjamin has also lived in Portugal and France, where he expanded his research and gave lectures on Comparative, Portuguese and African Literatures. He has been invited to the main universities in Africa, China, United States, Canada, France, England, Portugal, Austria, Tchecoslovaquia, Russia and Chile, giving lectures on African Literatures of Portuguese Speaking Countries, Comparative Literature, Neo-realism in Portugal and Brazil, among other subjects. Grandson of Lebanese immigrants, he received a Merit Medal celebrating 130 years of Middle Eastern Immigration to South America from BibliASPA - Biblioteca e Centro de Pesquisa América do Sul - Países Árabes. He has 3 children and 3 grandchildren, and lives in São Paulo. He is retired from University of São Paulo after 35 years of contribution as professor and administrator, but he is still actively involved in the Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras and Ciencias Humanas as a researcher.
Laurentino Gomes is a Brazilian journalist and writer. He is best known as the author of the trilogy of books that cover the history of Brazil and Portugal during the 19th century. He has already released two of the three books: 1808, about the transfer of the Portuguese Court to Brazil; and 1822, about the Independence of Brazil. He is about to release the third and final book of the series, 1889, about the Proclamation of the Republic.
Daniel Munduruku is a Brazilian writer and educator. He is member of the Munduruku indigenous people. His children's books deal about traditional indigenous life and tales and have been awarded several prizes. Munduruku holds three undergraduate degrees in philosophy, History and Psychology. He has a master's degree in Social Anthropology and a doctorate in education by the University of São Paulo.
Vanessa Barbara is a Brazilian journalist and author. She is a columnist for the newspaper O Estado de S. Paulo, having also written for the magazine piauí and the newspaper Folha de S. Paulo. Her articles are also featured in the International New York Times.
Inês Etienne Romeu was a Brazilian political prisoner held in extrajudicial detention in a Brazilian torture camp in the early 1970s. Romeu has been described as the sole captive to survive the camp. In 2014, Colonel Paulo Malhães testimony to the National Truth Commission revealed that Colonel of the Army Cyro Guedes Etchegoyen was the person in charge of the House of Death. He was head of the Army Information Center (CIE) from 1971 to 1974. He was also in charge of a group Brazilian military sent to train Augusto Pinochet's military personnel. Colonel Etchegoyen was trained at US Army School of the Americas. Paulo Malhães, would later claim that the purpose of the center was to convince suspected political opponents to serve as double agents against regime opponents. The main technique used to turn suspects into double agents was torture, which would be backed up by blackmail and clandestine payments.
Ana Paula Arendt, pseudonym of R. P. Alencar, is a writer, a poet, and a Brazilian diplomat. She is an author of children books, of screenplays, and of poem collections in Portuguese, English, Spanish, French, and other languages. She published Veritas Filia Mendacii Est and To Freedom. Among her most recent works are the awarded play in classical verse The Constituent, the awarded epithalamium "The Venerable Virtues of Man", Poetry reunited (2014-2018), among other books. Editor of books and magazines, especially Itapuan Poetry Magazine, bilingual publication in Portuguese and French. Recently elected for the Lisbon Academy of Science, Class of Letters, as associate and foreign correspondent, member of the New York Academy of Sciences, and admitted in the Brazilian Veteran Naval Fusiliers Association. She's hepta-granddaughter of D. Barbara de Alencar.
João Carlos Reiners Terron, writing as Joca Reiners Terron, is a Brazilian poet, novelist, designer and editor.
Miriam Azevedo de Almeida Leitão is a Brazilian journalist and television presenter. She has a program at GloboNews and is a commentator on economics at TV Globo's Bom Dia Brasil and writes the column Panorama Econômico in the newspaper O Globo. She is the mother of two sons, Vladimir Netto (1973) and Matheus Leitão (1977).
Marcelo Mirisola is a contemporary Brazilian author. He is usually known for his scatological, innovative, and comic writing style, and for his ingenious interplay between autobiography and fiction. His literary production includes short stories, novels, chronicles, and theater pieces, and is influenced by authors like John Fante, Henry Miller, Charles Bukowski, Louis-Ferdinand Céline, and Marcia Denser, among others. He has collaborated regularly for Brazilian magazines, newspapers and websites. Mirisola holds a bachelor's degree in law, but has never practiced the profession. In 2020 Mirisola won a prize from the Programa de Ação Cultural (PROAC) as a recognition for his outstanding body of work.
Franthiesco Anthonio Ballerini Manso, is a Brazilian journalist, art critic who is specialized in cinema, a writer, professor and PhD student in communication. He was the coordinator of free courses at Academia Internacional de Cinema in São Paulo, and is a member of the Associação Brasileira de Críticos de Arte. In 2015 he started researching about the power of culture in the world, with an emphasis on artistic productions and audiovisual entertainment in the 21st century.
Auxílio Brasil was the social welfare program of the Government of Brazil, created during the presidency of Jair Bolsonaro. Announced in October 2021, the provisional measure was sanctioned by Bolsonaro after passing through both legislative houses on 30 December 2021, replacing Bolsa Família. However, after Lula's reelection as president of Brazil in 2022, he declared that he would rename the program to Bolsa Família, putting an end to Auxílio Brasil.
José Paulo Cavalcanti Filho is a Brazilian lawyer and writer. He graduated from the Recife Faculty of Law. He was secretary general of the Ministry of Justice and (interim) Minister of Justice, under former president José Sarney. He was also President of the Administrative Council for Economic Defense (CADE), of EBN and of the Social Communication Council. Consultant for UNESCO and the World Bank, he occupies chair 27 of the Pernambuco Academy of Letters. As a novelist, he has more than 18 titles written, some published abroad. He is also a deep connoisseur of the work of the Portuguese writer Fernando Pessoa. In 2012, he won the José Ermírio de Moraes award for his book Fernando Pessoa – a quasi-autobiography. It also won first place at the Book Biennial and the Jabuti Prize. He is the winner of the II Molinello Prize, in Italy. He also received awards in countries such as Romania, Israel, Spain, France, Holland, Germany, Russia, England and the United States.
Miriam Lifchitz Moreira Leite was a Brazilian sociologist, researcher, university professor and writer, winner of the Jabuti Award.
Renata Pallottini or Renata Monachesi Pallottini was a Brazilian playwright, essayist, poet, theater professor and translator. She was an award-winning author of poetry, plays, essays, fiction, children's literature, theater theory, and television programs who was notable in the Brazilian literary and theater scenes. In a considerable part of her production, it is possible to identify the questioning and the combat against the social values that delimitated the woman's role in society.
