Álvaro Lins

Álvaro de Barros Lins (December 14, 1912 – June 4, 1970) 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 (PSD) 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, 1933 História literária de Eça de Queiroz, 1939 Alguns aspectos da decadência do Império, 1939 Jornal de crítica: primeira série, 1941 Poesia e personalidade de Antero de Quental, 1942 Jornal de crítica: segunda série, 1943 Notas de um diário de crítica - Primeiro volume, 1943 Palestra sobre José Veríssimo, 1943 Jornal de crítica: terceira série, 1944 Rio Branco, 1945 Jornal de crítica: quarta série, 1946 No mundo do romance policial, 1947 Jornal de crítica: quinta série, 1947 Jornal de crítica: sexta série, 1951 A técnica do romance em Marcel Proust, 1951 Roteiro literário do Brasil e de Portugal: antologia da língua portuguesa, 1956 Discurso sobre Camões e Portugal, 1956 Discurso de posse na Academia, 1956 Missão em Portugal: diário de uma experiência diplomática - I, 1960 A glória de César e o punhal de Brutus, 1962 Os mortos de sobrecasaca, 1963 O relógio e o quadrante, 1963 Girassol em vermelho e azul, 1963 Dionísios nos trópicos, 1963 Jornal de crítica: sétima série, 1963 Jornal de crítica: oitava série, 1963 Notas de um diário de crítica - Segundo volume, 1963 Literatura e vida literária, 1963 Sagas literárias e teatro moderno no Brasil, 1967 Filosofia, história e crítica na literatura brasileira, 1967 Poesia moderna no Brasil, 1967 O romance brasileiro, 1967 Teoria literária, 1967

Awards Centenário de Antero de Quental Award, for the essay Poesia e personalidade de Antero de Quental, 1942 Felipe de Oliveira Award, from the Sociedade Felipe de Oliveira, 1945, for the book Rio Branco, 1945 Pandiá 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, 1957 Jabuti Personality of the Year Award, from the Câmara Brasileira do Livro, for the book Missão em Portugal, 1960 Luiza Cláudio de Souza Award, for the books Os mortos de sobrecasaca and Jornal de crítica Sétima série, 1963