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Author and illustrator Ziraldo
Photo: Guillermo Legaria / AFP
The Brazilian author, illustrator and journalist Ziraldo is dead. He died on Saturday at the age of 91 in his apartment in Rio de Janeiro, the state news agency Agencia Brasil reported, citing his family. The death is also confirmed on the artist's official Instagram account. One of his most famous creations is the character Menino Maluquinho. The story of the adventurous boy was shown on television in Germany under the title “The Little Nerve”.
"Brazil has lost one of its greatest representatives of culture, the press, children's literature and imagination," wrote President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on the news platform X, formerly Twitter. "He was a defender of the imagination, of a fairer Brazil, of democracy and freedom of expression."
Ziraldo Alves Pinto grew up as the eldest of seven siblings in the state of Minas Gerais and discovered his passion for drawing at an early age. According to media reports, he is said to have published his first drawings in the newspaper “A Folha de Minas” at the age of six. In the 1960s, he was one of the founders of the newspaper “O Pasquim,” one of the most important publications in the fight against the military dictatorship in Brazil.
dpa/löw