Imagery IV – FIGURES IV - Monteiro Lobato

José Bento Monteiro Lobato, the most important Brazilian writer of children’s books, was born on April 18, 1882, in Taubaté, state of São Paulo.
He grew up on a farm and became a lawyer with a remarkable lack of enthusiasm, since he had always wanted to be an artist!
Bored with small town life, he wrote prefaces, did translations, moved to a farm called Buquira, tried to modernize its archaic farming methods, created the controversial character “Jeca Tatu,” and conducted extensive and ambitious research on the SACI, a popular figure of Brazilian folklore, the results of which were published in O Estado de S. Paulo.
In 1918, he successfully published his first volume of short stories, Urupês.
He founded the publishing house Editora Monteiro Lobato & Cia., introducing new standards for printing quality, bringing out new authors and, finally, going bankrupt.
In 1920, he published A menina do nariz arrebitado (The Little Girl with the Turned Up Nose), with cover design and illustrations by Voltolino, and managed to have it adopted as a school text, with a record first printing of 50,000 copies.
He set up the Companhia Editora Nacional, another publishing firm, in Rio de Janeiro.
His complete works comprise 17 books for children and 17 for adults, which include short stories, essays, sundry articles and correspondence.