João Gilberto Noll

Who is João Gilberto Noll?

João Gilberto Noll is a Brazilian writer, born on April 15, 1946 in Porto Alegre, in the southern Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul.

His early years were spent studying at the Catholic Colégio São Pedro. In 1967 he began university coursework in literature at the UFRGS-Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, but in 1969 he interrupted his studies to pursue a career as a journalist in Rio de Janeiro, working for the newspapers Folha da Manhã and Última Hora. In 1970 Noll spent a year in São Paulo working as a copyeditor at the publishing house Editora Nacional, but a year later he moved back to Rio and resumed both his work in journalism at Última Hora, writing on literature, theater and music, and his university studies in literature, first at the Faculdade Notre Dame and then at the PUC-Rio, where he received his degree in 1979.

Noll published his first short story as part of a 1970 Porto Alegre anthology entitled Roda de Fogo, but his more formal literary debut came in 1980 when his first book of short stories O cego e a dançarina was released, for which he received three literary prizes. One of Noll's short stories from O cego e a dançarina, Alguma coisa urgentemente, was the basis for the film Nunca fomos tão felizes in 1983, directed by Murilo Salles and starring the actor Claudio Marzo.