Anna Lins dos Guimarães Peixoto Bretas wrote under the pseudonym of Cora Coralina. She was born on August 20, 1889, in the city of
Goiás and raised on the banks of the
River Assunção, and maintained a strong connection to the city throughout her life. She was the daughter of Francisco de Paula Lins dos Guimarães Peixoto, a prominent local
desembargador (appellate judge) appointed by
Dom Pedro II, and Jacyntha Luiza do Couto Brandão. Cora first began to write poems in her early teenage years at around 14, and later attended the
Clube Literário Goiano of Dona Virgínia da Luz Vieira. Cora then married, and went to live in
São Paulo, where she raised six children. In addition to running her busy family life, Cora also worked in a small bakery as confectioner specializing in cakes. Her work and family consumed much of her time, but she continued to write; however it would not be until the mid-1960s, following the death of her husband when she was 75 years old, that she came to publish these works, the first of which would be '''Poemas dos Becos de Goiás e Estórias Mais'.'' After her husband's death, she also dedicated her time to agricultural activities on a small estate in the interior of the state. Her most well-known publications are
Poemas dos becos de Goías e estorias mais and
Estorias da Casa Velha da Ponte. She is especially well known for her writing on women's issues, life in the state of
Goiás, the poverty of Northeastern Brazilians, and the mythology of
Afro-Brazilian rituals that many still practiced. Her poetry integrates many of the diverse cultures of
Brazil. Her contemporaries include Argentine writer
Alfonsina Storni, Uruguayan writer
Juana de Ibarbourou, and Chilean poet
Gabriela Mistral. Almost all of her books have had more than ten editions, and have continued to be reprinted in the years since her death, and a number of posthumous volumes of her collected writings and personal stories have been published. In 1984, the Brazilian Union of Writers named her the "literary personality of the year." At the time,
Carlos Drummond de Andrade, a distinguished poet in Brazil well known in Latin America, said: "I admire Cora Coralina and her mastery of living in a state of grace with her poetry. Her verse is like running waters, her lyricism has the power and delicacy of the natural world." Cora Coralina's family house, where she lived in her childhood and her later years until her death in 1985, can be visited in the city of
Goiás. It is located by the bridge over the
Vermelho River. It is one of the earliest last buildings of
Goiás, and a typical 18th-century house; it inspired some of the most beautiful of her poems. There is a small museum in the house to honour her. ==Tributes==