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| Hilda Hilst |
Hilda Hilst
Hilda de Almeida Prado Hilst was a Brazilian poet, novelist, and playwright. Her work touches on the themes of mysticism, insanity, the body, eroticism, and female sexual liberation.
- Hilda de Almeida Prado Hilst (21 April 1930–4 February 2004) is considered one of Brazil’s most important contemporary writers. Born in Jaú in the interior of the State of São Paulo, her father, Apolonio de Almeid a Prado Hilst, came from a traditional and wealthy background and was a journalist, essayist and poet as well as a coffee farmer. The author herself recognised that her father plays a central role in her oeuvre. From the age of 7, Hilst was aware that her father suffered from paranoid schizophrenia, spending almost half his life in sanatoria. Her mother, Bedecilda Vaz Cardoso, the daughter of Portuguese immigrants, separated from her father when the writer was only 2 years old. ‘Meu pai ficou louco, a obra dele acabou. E eu tentei fazer uma obra muito boa, para que ele tivesse orgulho de mim.’ Hilst’s fascination with madness and its manifestations was born of the desire to connect with her father. Her writing would later evolve to examine mankind’s frailties and limitations through diverse literary genres, including poetry, fiction, drama and newspaper columns.
HILDA HILST: 1980s
Hilda Hilst was born in Jaú (SP) in 1930 and died in Campinas (SP) in 2004. One of the most important Brazilian writers of the 20th century, she published vast and versatile works in the genres of poetry, fiction, chronicle and dramaturgy.
Enigmatic, strange and thought-provoking. These are some of the adjectives that best describe Hilda Hilst, one of the great names in Brazilian Literature and an important female voice in our poetry. Hilda was a poet, playwright and fiction writer, born in the city of Jaú, in the interior of the state of São Paulo, on April 21, 1930 and died in Campinas on February 4, 2004.
Hilda Hilst dedicated much of her life to Literature, having published more than forty books. Although she did not fall in favor with the general public and critics, who still consider her texts hermetic, she was honored with the most important literary awards in Brazil and admired by great writers, including Caio Fernando Abreu and Lygia Fagundes Telles. The themes of her poetry surrounded human actions, the restlessness of being, death, love, sex, God and metaphysical inquiries, a theme that led her to flirt with Physics and Philosophy. Among her literary experiences was what she called “Instrumental Transcommunication”, when she left recorders connected around her farm (Casa do Sol, today the Hilda Hilst Institute) with the intention of recording the voices of spirits, thus demonstrating her clear concern with the survival of the soul.
Now that you know a little about Hilda Hilst's life and work, the Portuguese website has selected some of her best poems so that you can see for yourself her magnificent writing. Good reading!
