Diogo Mainardi
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Diogo Briso Mainardi (born September 22, 1962) is an Italo-Brazilian writer, publicist and TV commentator, mainly known for his short, impactful, ironic articles in Brazil's best-selling, weekly newsmagazine, Veja. Viewed as undoubtedly an iconoclast by his admirers, he is considered by them one of the most controversial writers in his country, having published texts that go from the comic to the aggressive, from melancholic to pure sarcasm.
He was born in São Paulo, where he finished high school. He went to London, England, to study economics at the London School of Economics, but did not manage to maintain a passing average, which he blames on too much time spent reading at the library. He quit, and never graduated.
Mainardi lived for a long time in Venice, and while living in Italy got along nicely with Gore Vidal, who heaped praise on him during a mid-1980s conference tour in Brazil. He has published five books: Malthus (1989), Arquipélago (1992), Polígono das Secas (1995), Contra o Brasil (1998), and A Tapas e Pontapés (2004). None of the first four - all novels - were commercial (or critical) successes, but his latest book, featuring excerpts of his popular articles in Veja, has been. He has also written two screenplays: 16060 (1995) and Mater Dei (2001). Both films were major box-office flops, something Mainardi regularly makes fun of in a self-deprecating manner.
He recently joined a Sunday night cable TV talkshow called Manhattan Connection.
Mainardi also started a podcast sponsored by Veja in 09/29/2006 where he records informal talks about random topics. The podcast is now available in iTunes.
Mainardi is a controversial character. For some, he is considered as something of a genius, something enhanced by his flippant and relentless advocacy of some causes and attitudes, including his constant- to the point of a pet obsession - smearing of the Workers' Party and the Lula government. For others, he is taken much as a hollow, heavy-handed and resentful ironist, a minor writer and an epigone of the late rightwing publicist Paulo Francis. Also, although he (and also his circle of admirers) likes to present himself as an apolitical person, he seems to let his advocay of rightwing causes to get into the way of his journalistical work.
DM comes from a family well known for its industrial background, for instance his grandparents (UDN related) were responsible for the introduction of the commerce of naphtalene (naftalina in portuguese) in Brazil. There comes his nickname: Didi naftalina. Later on in a curious literal interpretation or as an irony of destiny US created NAFTA and lucky DM saw his nickname over valuated.
Mainardi is married and has two sons. The older one is Tito, who suffers from cerebral palsy.
He regularly cites noted Brazilian intellectuals Paulo Francis and Ivan Lessa as his mentors.
[edit] Quotes
"I don't feel the responsibility to construct, only to destroy".
"The role of the press is to chase, hunt and knock down the politicians in power- someone's gotta control those people".
"Lula is my Xbox. He's my Nintendo".
