Cony, Carlos Heitor

(1926– )

   Brazilian novelist and journalist. Born in Rio de Janeiro, Cony was the third of four sons born to Ernesto Cony Jr., a journalist and dreamer, whose grandiloquent vision of life the younger Cony would later chronicle in one of his best-known works, Quase memória (Almost a Memoir). Reportedly thought mute by his family until he began speaking at age five, the author suffered from speech impediments throughout his early years, until a successful operation in 1941. One biographer attributes the necessity of communicating in writing to avoid childish taunts as one of the reasons for his early resorting to the written word as a means of communication.

   After several years in the Roman Catholic Seminary in São José and studies at the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, which he would abandon, Cony began his journalistic career in 1947 at the Jornal do Brasil. Likewise, he began collaborating with Rádio Jornal de Brasil a few years later. In 1956, he entered the national novel competition for the Prêmio Manuel Antônio de Almeida, sponsored by the prefecture of Rio de Janeiro, with the title O Ventre (The Womb), of definite Sartrean inspiration. The novel was admired by the jury but found no editor. He went on to win the prize twice, in consecutive years, with the novels A verdade de cada dia (The Daily Truth) and Tijolo de segurança, which established his literary reputation as a new voice in Brazilian letters. By 1963, he had published five novels and was a columnist for the daily Folha de São Paulo.

   As the military coup of 1964 progressed during the months of April and May, Cony, known as a writer of ironic fictional critiques of bourgeois life, wrote several pieces critical of the coup, later published in Ô ato e o fato (The Act and the Fact). In 1965, on the pages of Correio da Manhã, Cony launched an attack on the Ato Institucional No. 2 (AI-2, Institutional Act No. 2), one of several decrees instituted by the military dictatorship of General Castello Branco; this particular act abolished all existing political parties in Brazil. The article placed the author in opposition to the management of the daily, and Cony resigned. The editor, Antonio Callado, another foe of the regime, resigned with him. The author then wrote briefly for TV Rio, working on a serial about working-class Rio, but soon ran into problems with military censors and was substituted in the program. In October 1965, along with other Brazilian artists, journalist, and writers, including filmmaker Glauber Rocha, he was arrested following a demonstration in front of the Hotel Glória in Rio de Janeiro. This is the first of six periods of imprisonment Cony would suffer for political reasons.

   In 1967 he spent a year of exile in Cuba. On his return, he was arrested again, reportedly at the airport. By then, he had written eight novels, among them Pessach: A travessia (Pessach: The Crossing), a novel that examines the political awakening of a successful writer whose kidnapping by a revolutionary group leads to the abandoning of his former indifferent political posture in favor of a revolutionary commitment as well as an appreciation for his hitherto unacknowledged Jewish heritage. Two of his works, Matéria de memória (Matter for Memory, directed by Fernando Coni Campos, with the title Um homem e sua jaula / A Man and His Cage) and Antes o verão (Before the Summer, directed by Gerson Tavares) were adapted for the screen. Another act by the military regime, AI-5, sent Cony to jail on December 1968, this time for a month.

   Earlier, the publisher Adolpho Bloch had invited him to join his weekly magazine, Manchete. Cony was associated with Bloch Publications for several years, which, according to scholar Nancy T. Baden, made him suspect in the eyes of some members of the Brazilian left, as Bloch was widely regarded as a supporter of the military. In a series of interviews Baden conducted with a younger generation of Brazilian authors in the 1980s, few were aware of the price Cony had paid for his opposition to the military regime. Cony devoted himself to the writing of nonfiction for several years until the publication of his novel Pilatos (Pilate) in 1974, which he declared would be his last. He would return to fiction, to the delight of his many fans, with the 1995 publication of Quase memória, which was a huge success in Brazil and was awarded two Prêmio Jabuti as best novel and best book of the year. That year, the Academia Brasileira de Letras (Brazilian Academy of Letters) awarded him the Premio Machado de Assis for his literary trajectory. Soon after, he was made a Chevalier by the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres of France, and in 2000 he was elected to the Academia Brasileira de Letras. An important author and journalist in Brazil, Cony is the author of over 14 works, none of which have been translated into English. He resides in Brazil.