Antônio Houaiss

Antônio Houaiss was born on the 15^th October 1915; he died on the 7^th March 1999. He was a Brazilian lexicographer, writer and a translator. He is the son of Lebanese immigrant, he was born in the city of Rio de Janeiro and he died in the same city.

source of picture: www.vidaslusofonas.pt

Antônio Houaiss started his career in the city of Rio de Janeiro as a professor of the Portuguese language and for that he became a known authority in the language. He stoped teaching in the year 1945 and started his diplomatic service in the country; he served the government of the country and until the military coup of the country in the year 1964, and that was when he was forced to retire with the loss of political rights. At that period, he was the vice-consul of the country and the representative to the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland from the year 1947 to the year 1949. He was the 3^rd secretary of the Embassy of the country in the Dominican Republic from the year 1949 to the year 1951 and in Athens, Greece from the year 1951 to the year 1953. He was also a member of the permanent Brazilian delegation to the UN in New York from the year 1960 to the year 1964.

When he left the diplomatic career, Antônio Houaiss worked shortly as an editor of the newspaper of the country called Correio da Manhã from the year 1964 to the year 1965. Antônio Houaiss joined the Brazilian Academy of Philology in the year 1960 and he was elected as a member of the exclusive Academy of Letters of the country in the year 1971 and he presided the Academy in the year 1966. He was the chief editor of the Brazilian encyclopedia called Mirador. He got the Moinho Santista Award in the year 1990. He served as a minister of Culture of the country under the President Itamar Franco for 11 months from the year 1992 to the year 1993.

Antônio Houaiss wrote many books and many essays; he also wrote commentaries and articles on linguistics and other subjects.

Antônio Houaiss is best known for his translation of Ulysses by James Joyce and also for supervising with Mauro de Salles Villar the formation of the Dicionário Houaiss da Língua Portuguesa, which was one of the main reference dictionaries for Portuguese language. The dictionary he started compiling in the year 1985 was finished and published after his death in the year 2001. The work was finished by Antônio Houaiss Institute, which was created in the year 1997.

Antônio Houaiss was one of the main men of the international unification of the Portuguese orthography, a project he joined in the year 1985, and that led to the spelling reform treaty of the year 1990, but he didn’t live to see the implementation of the reform.