Adélia Luzia Prado Freitas (born 13 December 1935) is a Brazilian writer and poet.[1]
She was born in Divinópolis, Minas Gerais (one of the landlocked states of Brazil), where she still lives.[2][3] Her family were railroad laborers, and both her mother and grandmother died during childbirth. She was the first member of her family to attend university,[4] gaining degrees in Philosophy and Religious Education from the University of Divinópolis. She taught school until 1979, and was the Cultural Liaison for the City of Divinópolis from 1983 to 1988.[2][5]
Her poetry was "discovered" in 1976, when at the age of 40 she sent a small collection of her poems to poet Affonso Romano de Sant’Anna. De Sant'Anna passed her work on to the Brazilian modernist poet Carlos Drummond de Andrade, who read it and proclaimed in his weekly newspaper column[2] that St. Francis was dictating lines to a housewife in Minas Gerais.[5][6] Her work is a seeming paradox of a deep and spiritual Catholicism combined with the physical and the carnal. She herself has tried to resolve this contradiction, writing that "It's the soul that's erotic."[2] She is especially focused on the everyday concerns of women.[6] Adélia has published eight volumes of poetry and seven volumes of prose, starting with her first poetry collection Bagagem (Baggage).[2][5] In describing her work, Robert Hass said "Brazil has produced what might seem impossible: a really sexy, mystical, Catholic poet."[7]
Though she does her best to avoid the limelight, Prado is considered one of Brazil's foremost poets. Her work has been translated into English, Italian, and Spanish, and has been written about extensively in the critical and popular press in Brazil.[2]
Adélia Prado has a long relationship with American poet and translator Ellen Doré Watson, who has translated several collections of Prado's poetry. They are:
La obra de Prado también ha sido publicada traducida en The Paris Review , Antaeus , Field y American Poetry Review . Ha sido incluido en The Ecco Anthology of International Poetry y The Farrar Straus Giroux Book of Twentieth Century Latin American Poetry . [2]
El Jornal de Poesia de la Biblioteca Nacional de Brasil encuestó a intelectuales en 1998 para compilar A Lista Dos 20 (la "Lista de los veinte") poetas vivos más destacados. Prado ocupó el cuarto lugar. [8]
En 2000, Adélia apareció en los prestigiosos "Cadernos de Literatura Brasileira" brasileños producidos por el Instituto Moreira Salles. [9]
Prado fue lectora destacada en la FLIP (Festival Literario Internacional de Paraty) en 2006, evento que despertó gran interés por su obra. [10]
En 2014, recibió el premio Griffin Lifetime Recognition Award, presentado por los fideicomisarios del Griffin Poetry Prize . [5]
