Euclides da Cunha

Euclides da Cunha was a Brazilian writer and journalist, one of the most important and influential authors of the 20th century in Brazil. He was born in Cantagalo, in 1866, and studied engineering and literature at the University of São Paulo. He was a military officer and a public servant, but he is best known for his work as a war correspondent for the newspaper O Estado de S. Paulo, covering the War of Canudos, a rebellion of peasants in the northeastern region of Brazil, led by a religious leader named Antônio Conselheiro. He wrote a detailed account of the war and its social and historical context in his masterpiece Os Sertões (Rebellion in the Backlands), which is considered a landmark of Brazilian literature and a precursor of modernism. He also wrote other books, such as Contrastes e Confrontos (Contrasts and Confrontations), Peru versus Bolívia (Peru versus Bolivia), and À Margem da História (At the Margin of History). He was a member of the Brazilian Academy of Letters and the Historical and Geographic Institute. He died in 1909, at the age of 43, in Rio de Janeiro, after being shot by the lover of his wife. He is regarded as one of the greatest masters of Brazilian literature and journalism, and one of the main representatives of the Brazilian culture.