Manuel Antônio de Almeida

Manuel Antônio de Almeida (born November 17, 1831, Magé, Rio de Janeiro—died November 28, 1861, at sea) was the author of what is now considered to have been the first great novel in Brazilian literature, Memórias de um sargento de milícias (anonymously in parts, 1852–53; as a novel, 1854–55; Memoirs of a Militia Sergeant), his only fictional work. Its realism was not only far in advance of the Romanticism of his Brazilian contemporaries but several years in advance of the Naturalist school in Europe. It attracted little critical or popular attention until it was rediscovered by the Modernists in the 20th century.

Almeida studied art and, later, medicine, but his education was frequently interrupted for lack of money, and he supported himself as a translator and journalist. He became minister of the National Printing Establishment, where he befriended a young typographer and aspiring writer, Machado de Assis, who later became the literary giant of Brazil.

The Memoirs mirrors the life of Rio de Janeiro in the early 19th century with a sense of everyday reality. Written in an intimate, colloquial style, it offers a vivid glimpse of customs, personalities, and court intrigues, viewed by Leonardo, a young man of slight social standing, who seeks adventure where he finds it—among beggars, society women, priests, or sailors.

Almeida’s promising career was cut short when he died at 31 in a shipwreck off the Brazilian coast while on a newspaper assignment.