Pele Of The Written Word

Jorge Amado (1912-2001)

Today is Jorge Amado's birthday. This from The Writers' Alamanac:

It's the birthday of one of Brazil's best-loved writers: Jorge Amado, (books by this author) born near Ilhéus, Brazil (1912). He is one of the most widely translated novelists in the world; they called him the "Pelé of the written word." His thirty-two books sold millions of copies in forty languages. Brazilian hotels, bars, and restaurants, as well as brands of whiskey and margarine, were named for characters from his books. He's the author of Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon (1958), Home is the Sailor (1961), and Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands (1966).

Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon remains one of my all time favorites.

On another note: I've been writing this blog for a full year. This is the one year anniversary post. Blogs seem to me a lot like Borges' Library of Babel. There are zillions of blogs. Some have one entry. Some have many entries each day. Some have photos. Some have graphics. Some have millions of readers. Some have been read by no one except their writer. Some have been created and then their author forgot their name. And then there's this blog, this one here, which is having its first anniversary, at this somewhat secret, partially undisclosed location, which you, dear reader, seem to have found. It's as Borges wrote, "This much is already known: for every sensible line of straightforward statement, there are leagues of senseless cacophonies, verbal jumbles and incoherences. (I know of an uncouth region whose librarians repudiate the vain and superstitious custom of finding a meaning in books and equate it with that of finding a meaning in dreams or in the chaotic lines of one's palm ... They admit that the inventors of this writing imitated the twenty-five natural symbols, but maintain that this application is accidental and that the books signify nothing in themselves. This dictum, we shall see, is not entirely fallacious.)"