CORA CORALINA (pen name), a poet, columnist, and short story writer, was born in 1889 in the city of Goiás, then capital of Brazil’s Center-West State of Goiás. Named Ana Lins dos Guimarães Peixoto, Cora’s father was a High Court judge who died shortly after her birth. Though she only had three years of primary school education, it was enough to stimulate an interest in reading and storytelling.
At fourteen years old, she began writing poems about her everyday life. A year later, she published her first short story under the pen name Cora Coralina, because she wanted to stand out as a writer from the many other girls named Ana in the city.
In 1911, against her family’s wishes, Cora eloped with an older man, a divorcee and lawyer. They moved to the State of São Paulo where they had six children, two of whom died shortly after birth. But married life came with restrictions on her freedom as a writer. Her husband prevented her from publishing her stories. He also banned her from participating in the Week of Modern Art which took place in São Paulo in 1922.
Widowed in 1934, Cora Coralina lived in several interior cities in the State of São Paulo, working as a cook, bookseller, and even plowing the land. Never giving up on her writing, she published articles in local newspapers. She returned to Goiás in 1956 to receive her family inheritance and decided to stay. She continued to write, supporting herself by selling her homemade sweets.
After learning to type at seventy years old, Cora Coralina compiled her first poetry collection into a book format, titled Poemas dos Becos de Goiás e Estórias Mais (The Alleyways of Goiás and More Stories), published years later in 1965. Her second book, Meu Livro de Cordel (My Book of Cord), followed in 1976. When Brazil's most influential poet, Carlos Drummond de Andrade (1902-1987), discovered Cora's poetry in 1980, interest in her work spread across Brazil. In 1983, her third collection, Vintém de Cobre – Meias Confissões de Aninha (Copper Coin – Half Confessions of Aninha), was well received by literary critics and poetry lovers. Estórias da Casa Velha da Ponte (Stories of the Old Bridge House) was released in 1985. That same year, at 96 years old, she died of pneumonia.
Four years after her death, the large house where she had lived as a child and during her old age became the House Museum of Cora Coralina. It houses her manuscripts, personal objects, kitchen items, letters, photographs, furniture, books, and walls covered with memories of a woman and poet well loved by those who knew her.
Her numerous honors and awards include the following:
1980 – Homage of the National Council of Women of Brazil (Rio de Janeiro /RJ)
1981 – Jaburu Trophy, awarded by the Cultural Council of the State of Goiás
1982 – Poetry Award No. 01, National Festival of Women in the Arts (São Paulo/SP)
1983 – Order of Work Merit granted by the President of the Republic João Batista de Figueiredo
1984 – Tribute by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization as a symbol of rural working women
1984 – Appointed to Chair No. 38 of the Goiana Academy of Letters
2006 – Posthumously decorated with the Order of Cultural Merit granted by the Ministry of Culture
Photo: Association of the House of Cora Coralina
