Álvaro Lins
Álvaro de Barros Lins was a Brazilian journalist, professor, literary critic and lawyer.
Family
Lins was married to Heloísa Ramos Lins, with whom he had two children.Career
Journalism
The son of Pedro Alexandrino Lins and Francisca de Barros Lins, Álvaro Lins took the primary course in his hometown, moving to attend high school at Salesian College and Padre Félix Gymnasium, both in Recife. There he entered the Faculty of Law of the University of Recife in 1931, obtaining a bachelor's degree in 1935. At the age of 20, as a representative of the Student Directory, Lins produced his first work, called The university as a School of Public Men. From 1932 to 1940, he was also a professor of general geography and history of civilization in several schools in the city.In October 1934, invited by the then intervenor and later governor of Pernambuco, Carlos de Lima Cavalcanti, Lins assumed the position of Secretary of the State Government. He was part, in 1936, of the plate of the Social Democratic Party of Pernambuco, to run for a seat in the House of Representatives. However, the coup that established the Estado Novo interrupted the elections and Lins left the Secretariat of State in November 1937 and put his political ambitions on hold.
From there, he became a print journalist, working at Diário da Manhã of Pernambuco from 1937 to 1940, where he was editor and director. Moving to Rio de Janeiro, he began to make literary criticism, a genre that gave him national fame. There, he was a journalist for Diário de Notícias, Diários Associados between 1939 and 1940, and editor-in-chief of Correio da Manhã from 1940 to 1956. In 1952, he left for Portugal to teach Brazilian studies at the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters of the University of Lisbon. There is also collaboration of his authorship in the Luso-Brazilian magazine Atlântico.
Returning to Brazil in August 1954 because of the crisis triggered by the suicide of Getúlio Vargas, he resumed journalism and the chair of Brazilian Literature at Colégio Pedro II.
Literary work at the Academia Brasileira de Letras
On April 5, 1955, at the age of 42, he was unanimously elected to become the fourth occupant of chair 17 of the Brazilian Academy of Letters, vacant after the death of Edgar Roquette-Pinto, being received by the academic João Neves da Fontoura on July 7, 1956.Other jobs
Lins was Brazilian ambassador to Portugal from November 1956 to October 1959. He was the president of the 1st Inter-American Conference of Amnesty for Exiles and Political Prisoners of Spain and Portugal, based at the São Paulo Law School in 1960, and director of the literary supplement of the Daily News between March 1961 and June 1964. In 1962, he headed the Brazilian delegation to the World Peace Congress, held in Moscow. Retiring from the newspaper in 1964, Álvaro Lins devoted his last years to writing books. On 30 December 1957, he was awarded the Grand Cross of the Military Order of Christ of Portugal and on 28 December 1994 he was awarded a posthumous title with the Grand Cross of the Order of Liberty of Portugal.Books
In Portuguese.A universidade como escola de homens públicos, 1933História literária de Eça de Queiroz, 1939Alguns aspectos da decadência do Império, 1939Jornal de crítica: primeira série, 1941Poesia e personalidade de Antero de Quental, 1942Jornal de crítica: segunda série, 1943Notas de um diário de crítica - Primeiro volume, 1943Palestra sobre José Veríssimo, 1943Jornal de crítica: terceira série, 1944Rio Branco, 1945Jornal de crítica: quarta série, 1946No mundo do romance policial, 1947Jornal de crítica: quinta série, 1947Jornal de crítica: sexta série, 1951A técnica do romance em Marcel Proust, 1951Roteiro literário do Brasil e de Portugal: antologia da língua portuguesa, 1956Discurso sobre Camões e Portugal, 1956Discurso de posse na Academia, 1956Missão em Portugal: diário de uma experiência diplomática - I, 1960A glória de César e o punhal de Brutus, 1962Os mortos de sobrecasaca, 1963O relógio e o quadrante, 1963Girassol em vermelho e azul, 1963Dionísios nos trópicos, 1963Jornal de crítica: sétima série, 1963Jornal de crítica: oitava série, 1963Notas de um diário de crítica - Segundo volume, 1963Literatura e vida literária, 1963Sagas literárias e teatro moderno no Brasil, 1967Filosofia, história e crítica na literatura brasileira, 1967Poesia moderna no Brasil, 1967O romance brasileiro, 1967Teoria literária, 1967Awards
Centenário de Antero de Quental Award, for the essay Poesia e personalidade de Antero de Quental, 1942Felipe de Oliveira Award, from the Sociedade Felipe de Oliveira, 1945, for the book Rio Branco, 1945Pandiá Calógeras Award, from the Associação Brasileira de Escritores, for the book Rio Branco, 1945- Grã-Cruz da Ordem Nacional do Mérito, 1956
- Grã-Cruz da Ordem de Cristo, Portugal, 1957Jabuti Personality of the Year Award, from the Câmara Brasileira do Livro, for the book Missão em Portugal, 1960Luiza Cláudio de Souza Award, for the books Os mortos de sobrecasaca and Jornal de crítica Sétima série, 1963