Diogo Mainardi

Diogo Mainardi (born 1962) is a Brazilian writer and articulist. Undoubtedly an iconoclast, he is one of the most controversial thinkers in his country, having published texts that go from the comical to the aggressive, from the melancholic to pure sarcasm.

He was born in the city of São Paulo, where he finished higschool. He went to London to study economics at a university, but he didn't manage to get good enough grades because he spent most of the time reading at the library. He quit, and never graduated.

Mainardi wrote four books: Malthus (1989), Arquipélago (1992), Polígono das Secas (1995) and Contra o Brasil (1998). None of them was a commercial success. He also wrote two scripts for films: 16060 (1995) and Mater Dei (2001). Both films were major box-office failures.

Despite all that, Mainardi is a influential articulist in the weekly magazine Veja, the best-selling periodical in Brazil and one of the best-selling in the world, with more than 1 million copies running every week. He is unarguably the writer with most letters and mail directed to him.

He has also joined a Sunday TV show on cable TV called Manhattan Connection, in which Brazilian thinkers and invited guests discuss the news of the week.

Diogo Mainardi has a house in Venice. He is married and has a 3-year-old son, Tito.

Quotes

"I don't feel the responsibility of constructing, only destroying".

"The role of the press is to chase, hunt and knock down the politicians in power- someone's gotta control those people".

"It´s so rare for Brazil to be successful at something that it would be fair to celebrate the good work of our prostitutes".