[...] Sinto-me preso ao Recife com a resignação de um condenado à prisão perpétua. Pés de chumbo, asas cortadas. Lar e exílio ao mesmo tempo. Nunca, porém, um Robinson Crusoé cansado da sua ilha. [...]
[...] I feel stuck to Recife with the resignation of the condemned to a life sentence. Lead feet, broken wings. Home and exile at the same time. Never, however, like a Robinson Crusoe tired of his island. [...]
(Renato Carneiro Campos. Sempre aos domingos [Always on Sundays]).
Renato Accioly Carneiro Campos – essayist, journalist and writer – was born on 8 March 1930 in the city of Jaboatão dos Guararapes, in the state of Pernambuco, to Fernando Carneiro R. Campos and Maria do Carmo Accioly Campos.
He became a Bachelor in Juridicial and Social Sciences from the Recife Faculty of Law in 1953. He studied Sociology in Paris, with Professor Joffre Dumazedier.
He was a researcher and director of the Department of Sociology at what was then the Joaquim Nabuco Institute of Social Research, today the Joaquim Nabuco Foundation, professor of Literature at the Centre for Philosophy and Human Sciences at the Federal University of Pernambuco and vice-coordinator at the Seminário de Tropicologia (Tropicology Seminary).
He contributed to magazines and newspapers in the area of folklore, being one of the most read and admired chroniclers in Pernambuco. His weekly chronicles published in the Diario de Pernambuco were collected in a book entitled Sempre aos domingos (Always on Sundays), released in 1984, as a posthumous honour. In this first edition, the cover art is by the painter José Cláudio (Pássaro bicando goiaba – Bird Eating Guava). In 2006, a second edition was released with a preface by Jacy Bezerra, which included essays by his brother Maximiano Campos, his daughter Evangelina Carneiro Campos (Vanja), the writers José Paulo Cavalcanti, Marcus Accioly and painter João Câmara, responsible for the cover illustration, which portrays the Maurice of Nassau Bridge in Recife.
He was also the author of the following works: Folhetos populares na zona dos engenhos de Pernambuco (Popular Pamphlets in the Pernambuco Sugarcane Plantation Zone), 1955; Ideologia dos poetas populares do Nordeste (Ideology of Popular Poets from the Northeast), 1959; Arte, sociedade e região (Art, Society and Religion), 1960; Carlos Pena Filho: poeta de cor (Carlos Pena Filho: Poet of Colour), 1967; Igreja, política e região (The Church, Politics and Region) 1967; Tempo amarelo e outros tempos (The Yellow Time and Other Times), 1980, released after his death.
Renato Carneiro Campos died aged 46 on 31 January 1977 in Recife, the city he loved dearly and about which he wrote so much.
The Joaquim Nabuco Foundation, as a posthumous honour, gave his name to one of the buildings in the Anísio Teixeira Campus in Apipucos. On the occasion was the unveiling of a portrait of the writer, the work of João Câmara, and the launching of the second edition of his book Ideology of Popular Poets from the Northeast.
In 2007, in commemoration of the thirtieth anniversary of the writer’s death, the Pernambuco State Council of Culture held a special session in their auditorium, which subsequently bore his name.
Recife, 29 January 2010.
Translated by Peter Leamy, January 2012.
Updated on 2 april 2018.
sources consulted
CAMPOS, Maximiano. O meu irmão Renato Carneiro Campos. Recife: IJNPS, 1978. 11 p. Texto lido em 18 de agosto de 1978 no Instituto Joaquim Nabuco de Pesquisas Sociais, durante homenagem póstuma a Renato Carneiro Campos.
ENCICLOPÉDIA Nordeste. Categoria: celebridades. Disponível em: . Acesso em: 6 jan. 2010.
FUNDAÇÃO JOAQUIM NABUCO. Departamento Administrativo. Divisão de Pessoal. Recife, 23 jul. 2009.
INSTITUTO Joaquim Nabuco presta homenagem póstuma a Renato Carneiro Campos. Diario de Pernambuco, Recife, 18 ago. 1977.
how to quote this text
Source: ANDRADE, Maria do Carmo. Renato Careiro Campos. Pesquisa Escolar Online, Joaquim Nabuco Foudation, Recife. Available at: <http://basilio.fundaj.gov.br/pesquisaescolar>. Accessed: day month year. Exemple: 6 Aug. 2009.