Visconde de Taunay
1843–1899
Biography
Alfredo d'Escragnolle Taunay, known in Brazil as the Visconde de Taunay, was born in Rio de Janeiro in February 1843 and died in 1899. He was a Brazilian nobleman who worked in many fields at once: he trained as a military engineer and served as a soldier, and he also taught, composed and played music, wrote history and sociology, and took part in politics. The war and the rough frontier country he came to know through his service left a deep mark on what he wrote.
His best-known novel is Inocência, a regional story set in the interior of Brazil that critics count among the early signs of naturalism in the country's fiction. His other major work is A Retirada da Laguna, an account of an episode in the Paraguayan War, first written in French in 1872 and later issued in Portuguese; it is often praised as the finest literary account of that conflict. He was one of the founders of the Brazilian Academy of Letters, and he held its thirteenth chair from 1897 until his death.
Two of his books are on this site, both in Portuguese. Ao Entardecer (At Dusk) is a set of short stories gathered a few years after his death, with scenes of children, outcasts and the countryside; its first story begins on a train from São Paulo to Rio. Histórias Brasileiras brings together four tales and a one-act comedy, most set in the frontier country of Mato Grosso that he knew as a soldier, written in the 1870s. Between them they show a writer who took his military years and his travels into the Brazilian interior and turned them into stories about ordinary lives.
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Books
Ao Entardecer
by Visconde de Taunay
Short stories by the Visconde de Taunay, the soldier and writer of Inocência, collected a few years after his death. The first, Pobre Menino!, begins on a train from São Paulo to Rio, and the rest are Brazilian scenes of children, outcasts and the countryside. This book uses the…
Summary written by Claude Sonnet 5.5.Histórias Brasileiras
by Visconde de Taunay
Four tales and a one-act comedy by the Visconde de Taunay, most set in the frontier country of Mato Grosso that he knew as a soldier: Ierecê a Guaná, Camirão o Kinikinau, O Vigário das Dores and Juca o Tropeiro. They are early Brazilian regional stories, written in the 1870s.…
Summary written by Claude Sonnet 5.5.Innocencia
by Alfredo d'Escragnolle Taunay Taunay
Cirino, a travelling healer in the backlands of Mato Grosso, is called to treat Inocência, the daughter of a stern farmer who has already promised her to another man. Taunay's novel of the Brazilian interior is prized for its picture of rural life and speech. This book uses the…
Summary written by Claude Opus 5.5.