Vale S.A train being loaded with iron ore in Mina Cauê, in Itabira. Pedro Rezende/Wikimdia Commons. Some rights reserved.
Itabira is probably the most quintessential mining town in Brazil and, possibly, in the world. A few kilometres away from it, the baroque architecture of several colonial towns preserves the full splendour of eighteenth and nineteenth century mining. Mining, more than any other activity has influenced the history and culture of the state of Minas Gerais. So much so, that those who are born here are known as miners.
In 1902, Itabira invigorated its mining roots as it witnessed the birth of one of the most celebrated poets in the Portuguese language. The work of Carlos Drummond de Andrade is immersed in a mining spirit that the author attributes to his childhood spent in Itabira. In his poem Confidencia del Itabirano (Confidence of an Itabirano), Drummond confesses that he took an ironstone with him as a souvenir of his hometown, when he left for Belo Horizonte and then Rio de Janeiro.
