author
Lima Barreto
1881–1922
A sharp, fearless voice in Brazilian literature, this Rio de Janeiro novelist and journalist wrote with biting wit about racism, bureaucracy, and the false promises of modern life. His best-known book, The Sad End of Policarpo Quaresma, helped make him a lasting figure of Brazilian pre-Modernism.
1 Audiobook
Triste Fim de Polycarpo Quaresma
by Lima Barreto
About the author
Born in Rio de Janeiro in 1881, Lima Barreto wrote novels, short stories, and journalism that challenged the social and political world around him. He became known for portraying everyday life in the city with humor, irony, and deep anger at injustice.
His work often exposed racial prejudice, class inequality, and the absurdities of official power. Rather than idealizing Brazil, he wrote about the country as he saw it, which gave his fiction an unusual directness and urgency.
Though he died in 1922, his reputation only grew with time. Today he is widely read as one of Brazil’s most important early 20th-century writers and as a powerful critic of the society he lived in.