Northeastern school

Northeastern school, group of 20th-century Brazilian regional writers whose fiction dealt primarily with the culture and social problems of Brazil’s hinterland Northeast. Stimulated by the Modernist-led revival of nationalism of the 1920s, the regionalists looked to the diverse ethnic and racial cultures of Brazil for inspiration.

The gifted and dedicated group of prose writers of the Northeastern school included Gilberto Freyre, leader of the movement and author of the monumental Casa-Grande e Senzala (1933; The Masters and the Slaves); José Lins do Rego, who depicted the clash of the old and new ways of life in his Sugar Cane cycle of novels (1932–36); and Jorge Amado, who gave Brazil some of its best proletarian literature in such novels as Terras do sem fim (1942; The Violent Land) and Dona Flor e Seus Dois Maridos (1966; Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands). Also associated with the school were Graciliano Ramos, who explored the inner struggle of the individual, and Rachel de Queiroz, who wrote of the bandits, religious mystics, and forgotten men who inhabit the hinterland.