José Martiniano de Alencar

Born in Messejana, Ceará, on May 1, 1829, José de Alencar was a Brazilian lawyer, journalist, politician, playwright, and novelist. He became one of the defining writers of 19th-century Brazilian Romanticism, and reference works describe him as a major figure in the Indianista tradition, a literary movement that placed Indigenous themes and landscapes at the center of national storytelling.

His novel O Guarani (1857) is widely noted for launching the great wave of Indianista fiction in Brazil. He also wrote Iracema and many other novels that helped readers imagine a distinctly Brazilian literature, rooted in local history, language, and scenery rather than European models.

Alencar died in Rio de Janeiro on December 12, 1877. His place in Brazilian letters remained so important that Machado de Assis later chose him as the patron of chair 23 of the Academia Brasileira de Letras.