Maria da Cunha in Brazil

a poetess who loved women

Abstract

The Portuguese poetess Maria da Cunha (1872-1917) had a troubled life. She married in 1895, published her book of poetry, Trindades, in 1909, with a second edition in 1911, divorced in May 1912 and emigrated to Brazil. Maria da Cunha arrived in Rio de Janeiro on September 16th, after a brief stay in France, accompanied by the journalist Virgínia Quaresma (1882-1973). The poetess then had to live off her own work. She got a job at the Rio newspaper A Época, where she was cultural editor and columnist and where she published some poems until mid-1914. Afterwards, she traveled between Rio and São Paulo, giving conferences and living with the immigrant Portuguese writer Ana de Villalobos Galheto (1863-1944) and with the Brazilian poetess and educator Eunice Caldas (1879-1967), until she died, in São Paulo, on January 1st, 1917. In this article, I present some biographical data about this writer, mainly from her last years, and how Brazil appears in her poetic and chronicle works. I will highlight part of her sociability network and how women are important in her production. I will point out how affection for women appears in her texts.