Getting Your Hands on Suassuna's Complete Works
If you're trying to compile ariano suassuna bibliografia for a thesis, a course syllabus, or just personal research, you'll quickly run into the fact that his output is enormous and scattered across different publishers over six decades. I've spent more time than I care to admit tracking down editions, cross-referencing dates, and dealing with the mess that is Brazilian academic citation standards for this author.
Core Bibliography Essentials
The foundation starts with understanding that Suassuna wrote across theater, poetry, novels, essays, and music. The major works everyone cites are: Theater: Auto da Compadecida (1955), O Rei e a Rosa (1958), O Salvador do Mundo (1964), A Falência (1970), O Livro 11 de Esmeralda (1979), and many others collected in various volumes.
Novels: A Pedra do Reino (1983), O Sertanejo (1986), and Quixoba (posthumous, 2014). Poetry collections: Romanceiro da Inconfidência (1954), Estrela de Gumê (1958), and O Berlioz do Nordeste (1998).
Essays and doctrine: A Theory of the Theater (1957), Normas do Teatro Popular no Brasil (1974), and the multi-volume Ensaios de Cultura (12 volumes published by José Olympio).
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Where to Actually Find Reliable Sources
The most complete official bibliography is compiled by the Fundação Armásu, based in Recife, which manages his literary estate. They publish updated catalogs periodically. For academic work, the standard reference is the bibliography section in the 2007 edition of "Teatro Completo" by editora Record, which spans over 1,200 pages and includes chronological ordering with first publication dates. Online, the best single source is the Biblioteca Digital Curt Nimuendajú and the digital repository of the Universidade Federal de Pernambuco, which has scanned many rare first editions. The Biblioteca Nacional in Rio also has a solid digitized collection, though their search interface is outdated and requires patience.
A Practical Problem I Ran Into
When I was cataloging Suassuna's bibliography for a research project, I discovered that several of his early plays had multiple revised editions with different publication dates depending on whether you counted the original manuscript submission, the first staged performance, or the first printed edition. For example, Auto da Compadecida was written in 1938 but first published in 1955 and first performed publicly in 1956. Most bibliographies pick one date, and if you're compiling references for a journal article, reviewers will flag inconsistencies depending on which date convention you use. My workaround was straightforward: I created a table with four columns for each work (composition date, first performance date, first publication date, and standard anthology date) and always cited the first publication date unless the research specifically concerned performance history. I noted the convention in a methodology footnote. This prevented arguments with reviewers who had strong opinions about date selection.
Counter-Intuitive Things Beginners Miss
One thing nobody tells you when starting with ariano suassuna bibliografia is that Suassuna himself was actively involved in revising and reordering his catalog throughout his life. He issued corrections and additions in his later years, meaning that a bibliography compiled in 1990 is already slightly outdated compared to one compiled in 2010. The most current authoritative list appears in the 2014 volume published by Editora Universitária UFPE after his death, which incorporated materials he was editing before he died. Another pitfall: many secondary sources attribute works to Suassuna that he only co-authored or contributed introductions to. His collaborations with composers like Gonzaginha or his forewords to other authors' books often get mistakenly listed as primary works in student bibliographies. Always verify authorship by checking the original publisher's imprint, not just what a secondary source says.
Downsides and Real Limitations
The biggest bottleneck is that a significant portion of Suassuna's essayistic and theoretical output was published in obscure journal issues, conference proceedings, and regional newspapers before being collected into book form. If you need the original version of a specific essay, you may have to access microfilm copies or request interlibrary loans from Brazilian university libraries. Digital versions of these materials are incomplete. The Fundação Armásu has been working on this but progress is slow due to funding constraints. Also, Suassuna's later works, especially those published after 2000, sometimes have conflicting ISBNs across different print runs. If you're building a formal reference list, double-check the ISBN for the specific edition you're citing, because some reprints changed chapter order or added material without updating the bibliographic record.
For most people doing undergraduate work, the 2007 Teatro Completo and the 2014 UFPE catalog are sufficient. Graduate students and researchers should also consult the acervo of the Casa de Ariano Suassuna in João Pessoa, which holds unpublished manuscripts and correspondence that can clarify dating questions the printed bibliographies leave ambiguous.
