Adalgisa Nery

Who was Adalgisa Nery?

Adalgisa Nery was a Brazilian poet, journalist and politician. She was born in Rio de Janeiro as Adalgisa Maria Feliciana Noel Cancela Ferreira, the daughter of a civil servant. In 1922 she married Ismael Nery, a painter and poet who introduced Adalgisa to a circle of Brazilian artists and intellectuals that included Manuel Bandeira, Jorge de Lima and Murilo Mendes. The Nerys lived in Europe from 1927 to 1929, where they met the artist Marc Chagall and the Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos. Ismael died of tuberculosis in 1934, leaving Adalgisa with two sons.

Nery began to publish poetry and fiction after her first husband's death. Her first book, Poemas, published in 1937, received critical acclaim, and she wrote short stories and magazine articles. Although the poet Murilo Mendes had proposed marriage to Nery in the late 1930s, she married in 1940 Lourival Fontes, director general of the Department of Press and Propaganda. In the dictatorship of Getúlio Vargas, the DIP was in charge of censorship. Nery assisted the DIP as a social director and public relations officer. When Fontes was named Brazilian ambassador to Mexico in 1944, Nery accompanied him and met Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo, José Clemente Orozco and David Alfaro Siqueiros.