José Horácio de Almeida Nascimento Costa is a university Professor and poet with several books of creation and literary criticism published in several languages. His poetry is translated into Spanish, English, French, Catalan, German, Swedish, Italian, Dutch, Macedonian, Romanian, and Bulgarian. His most recent books of poems were, among others, Ravenalas (2008); Ciclópico Olho (2011); Bernini (2013) – for which he has received the Jabuti Award -; Ravenalas y otros poemas (Buenos Aires, 2013), 11/12 – Onze Duodécimos (2014), A hora e vez de Candy Darling (2016) and Duas ou Três Coisas Airadas (2018) and Satori: 30 anos (2019). He translated central modern poets such as Octavio Paz, José Gorostiza, César Vallejo and Elisabeth Bishop.
He received the APCA award (Paulista Association of Art Critics) in 1990, for organizing the international meeting that generated the book A palavra poética na América Latina (1992). He was a member of the jury of several international awards, including the FIL-Guadalajara (2013 and 2014) and president of the jury of the Octavio Paz Prize for Poetry and Essay (2000). He was also president of ABEH – Brazilian Association of Homoculture Studies in the 2006-2008 biennium. He holds a degree in Architecture and Urbanism from the University of São Paulo (1978), a Master of Arts – New York University (1983), a Master of Philosophy – Yale University (1986), a Master of Arts – Yale University (1986) and a PhD in Philosophy (1986) – Yale University (1994), with a dissertation on José Saramago: from Neo-Realism to Intertextuality.
He lived outside of Brazil for twenty years, taking up residence in several countries such as the USA, Spain, Portugal, and Mexico, where he was a professor at the aforementioned Faculty of Philosophy and Letters at UNAM. He returned to Brazil in 2001 to teach as a full-time professor at the Faculty of Philosophy, Letters and Human Sciences at the University of São Paulo. Since 2020 he has been a full professor (Associate) at said FFLCH-USP. He is currently a full professor (Associate) at the Faculty of Philosophy, Letters and Human Sciences at the University of São Paulo.
He is a member of the “Institute of Comparative Literature Margarida Losa”, of the University of Porto, and of the “Humanities Centre – CHAM” of the FCSH of the New University of Lisboa. He has more than 50 essays in academic journals and coordinated the Graduate Program in Portuguese Literature at FFLCH-USP (2018-20). In 2020, he was selected with a CAPES-PRINT/USP scholarship in the “Senior Visitor” category to stay a semester at FFyL-UNAM in 2021, to develop the research “Portuguese books and authors in New Spain and Independent Mexico 1550-1810”, which was the subject of his post-doctoral stay at the same university in 2017.
Photo: © Casa da América Latina