author
Aluísio Azevedo
1857–1913
A sharp-eyed Brazilian novelist and caricaturist, he helped bring Naturalism into Brazilian literature. His best-known books look closely at race, class, ambition, and everyday life in 19th-century Brazil.
1 Audiobook
O Cortiço
by Aluísio Azevedo
About the author
Born in São Luís, Maranhão, in 1857, Aluísio Azevedo worked first as a caricaturist and journalist before becoming one of Brazil’s most important novelists. He is widely remembered as a key figure in Brazilian Naturalism, a literary movement interested in social forces, environment, and human behavior.
His 1881 novel O Mulato is often described as a landmark in that movement in Brazil, and O Cortiço remains his most famous book. In these works, he turned his attention to prejudice, poverty, social climbing, and the crowded urban world around him, giving his fiction an energy that still feels vivid.
Azevedo also served as a diplomat later in life. He died in Buenos Aires in 1913, leaving behind fiction that helped shape the course of Brazilian literature and opened a tougher, more realistic way of writing about society.