Typewritten letter signed by Monteiro Lobato (1935)

In 1935, Monteiro Lobato undertakes once again looking for oil.

Typewritten letter signed by Monteiro Lobato to Manoel Ganisto. One page. In Portuguese. 22cm x 28.5cm. February 10, 1935, São Paulo. With three photographs of an oil well, each 11 cm x 6.5 cm. Excellent condition. Single set.

letter extract

(...) My dear friend, I am a raté of letters. I always preoccupy myself with them accidentally, though essentially I was nothing more than a literary man. I had my Ingres guitars, and lots of them. A thousand businesses, industries, the devil. Several faillites. In New York, I understood how to become a millionaire by force and I was ruined on the stock market. Now I'm trying the "big shot" again and this time with petroleum. I formed Cia Petroleos do Petroleo and I'm drilling. We have a beautiful well already 1100 meters deep, and full of hope of touching a large formation of the precious liquid that governs the world. I'm including some photos of our rig or the Araquá oil field, as we call it.

The tremendous underground fight that oil research determines (fight against the Standard Oil plague) absorbs all my time and activity. I don't have time for literature or reading. I'm getting illiterate, this delight.

I greatly admire your constancy, my friend, in always staying in the same field, lovingly cultivating your spirit and following the literary activity of this South American China from afar. What patience and what useless work! We are still a big zero in the world and we will be for a long time to come because Brazilians suffer from a very serious illness. Imagine that Brazilians don't think with their brains. Think with any other organ in the body that I haven't figured out yet. The blunders we make through what we call the Government led me to the belief that it is impossible for us to think with our brains. Is it with the heel? Is it the testicles? Here's the problem. (...)

Lobato is practically the founder of modern Brazilian children's literature. It managed to charm generations of children and adults with a very simple language. His works, mainly the 23 volumes of Sítio do Pica Pau Amarelo, are part of Brazilian culture and are internationally known, there are translations even in China.

However, we cannot speak of Monteiro Lobato without remembering his political engagement and the controversial issues in which he was involved, in particular oil. Exactly 80 years ago, Brazil discovered its first oil well, in Salvador (Bahia). Now without his grandfather's inheritance and without his publishing company, he invested in oil research and prospecting both to establish himself as an entrepreneur and to give Brazil the opportunity to develop more quickly and independently.

Publicly criticizing the association between the Brazilian government and the US oil company Standard Oil, he criticized President Getúlio Vargas for prioritizing the interests of the Brazilian state. This battle led to the writer's imprisonment from January to June 1941.

Ironic, critical, controversial... This impactful letter and these unpublished photographs, recently found in France, show how much the writer was a very well-informed citizen, an intellectual with strong convictions and an audacious businessman, especially when it came to oil. A very important piece for anyone who loves Brazilian literature and history, or simply admires one of the greatest Brazilian writers.