Chico Buarque

Chico Buarque is the stage name of Francisco Buarque de Hollanda, a Brazilian singer-songwriter, guitarist, composer, playwright, writer, and poet born on 19 June 1944. His music, which frequently reflects on Brazil’s social, economic, and cultural conditions, is what he is most famous for.

He was the first child of Sérgio Buarque de Hollanda, a noted historian and journalist, and grew up moving between Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, and Rome. As a child, he studied literature and wrote, and was drawn to music through the bossa nova of Tom Jobim and João Gilberto. In the 1960s, he began performing as a singer and guitarist, and also wrote a play that the Brazilian military dictatorship considered dangerous. Along with other Tropicalist and MPB musicians, he faced threats from the military government and left for Italy in 1969. He returned to Brazil in 1970 and kept making music and writing, though censors suppressed much of his work. He released several albums in the 1980s and published three novels in the 1990s and 2000s.

In 2019, Buarque was awarded the Camões Prize, the top literary prize for Portuguese-language works. The award was delayed by four years due to actions by Jair Bolsonaro, but Buarque finally received it in April 2023. He has also won eleven Brazilian Music Awards, the country’s most important music prize.

Born in Rio de Janeiro on 19 June 1944, Buarque came from an intellectually privileged family. His father was a historian, sociologist, and journalist; his mother, Maria Amélia Cesário Alvim, was a painter and pianist. His siblings include singers Miúcha and Cristina Buarque, and politician Ana de Hollanda. As a child, bossa nova—especially the work of Tom Jobim and João Gilberto—made a strong impression on him. He also loved writing, composing his first short story at 18 and studying European literature young. Another consuming interest was football, which he started playing at age four and continued into his 60s. He lived in Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, and Rome during his childhood.

He briefly studied architecture at the University of São Paulo but often skipped classes and did not pursue a career in that field. His public debut as a musician and composer came in 1964, and he quickly built a reputation at music festivals and on television variety shows as bossa nova gained prominence. Nara Leão recorded three of his songs. His first album, self-titled, featured catchy sambas with inventive wordplay and an undercurrent of nostalgic tragedy. His first hit, “A Banda,” came in 1966, about a marching band, and he released several more singles. Though he started with bossa nova, he later explored samba and Música popular brasileira. Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil criticized his style as overly conservative. In 1968, his play *Roda Viva*—themed around existential questions—drew the military government’s disapproval, and he served a short prison sentence. He left for Italy for 18 months in 1970, then returned to write his first novel in 1972, which censors did not target.

His protest single “Apesar de Você,” a thinly veiled reference to the dictatorship, was initially overlooked by censors and became an important anthem for the democratic movement. After selling over 100,000 copies, it was banned. In 1974, censors prohibited any song by Chico Buarque. He created a pseudonym, “Julinho de Adelaide,” complete with a fabricated life story and newspaper interviews. Under that name, he wrote songs like “Jorge Maravilha” and “Acorda Amor” until a *Jornal do Brasil* story exposed him. He also wrote a play, *Calabar*, about the Dutch invasion of Brazil in the 1600s, drawing parallels to the military regime. Songs such as “Samba de Orly” (1970) and “Acorda amor” (1974) continued to show his opposition.

During the 1970s and 1980s, he worked with filmmakers, playwrights, and musicians on further protest pieces against the dictatorship. He saw the 1983 Concert for Peace in Nicaragua as a valid platform for his political views, and many of his songs from that decade described Brazil’s re-democratisation. The Concert for Peace was part of the “Central American Peace Concerts” series featuring various Latin American artists. His novel *Budapeste* won the Prêmio Jabuti, a major Brazilian literary award. His 2017 album *Caravanas* was named the third best Brazilian album of that year by *Rolling Stone* Brasil.

His awards include a 2010 shortlist for the São Paulo Prize for Literature in the Best Book of the Year category for *Leite Derramado*, the 2013 Casa de las Américas prize for narrative fiction for *Spilt Milk*, and the 2019 Camões Prize.