Botto arrived in Rio de Janeiro the day he turned 50, 17 August 1947.
He was very well received by the Portuguese community and cherished by local intellectuals like Pompeu de Souza, Macedo Soares, Horácio de Carvalho, Vinicius de Morais or Danton Jobim.
The Academia de Letras do Rio de Janeiro received him with welcoming speeches by João Neves Fontoura and Manuel Bandeira.
The press of Rio, São Paulo, Recife, Ceará, Baía, was laudatory about him calling him the greatest Portuguese poet alive and publishing encomiastic articles by well-known Brazilian writers.
He was invited to banquets, receptions and tribute meetings.

He resided in São Paulo until 1951 and then moved to Rio de Janeiro.
He survived on his meager royalties and by writing articles and columns in Portuguese and Brazilian newspapers, doing some radio shows and poetry readings in theatres, associations, clubs and, finally, cheap taverns.

He was doing badly day by day and he ended up living in very shabby conditions (sometimes the couple resorted to feed on flour mixed with water).
Always on the move, changing hotels, boarding houses, apartments.
Many times he had to loan from friends, which very rarely if ever were refunded by him.
His megalomania (due to syphilis) was rampant and he told delirious, outlandish tales like the one of being visited in Lisbon by Mário de Andrade.
When they told him Andrade never went to Portugal, Botto retorted "If it was not him then it was Gide or Proust...".
He also claimed things like being the greatest living poet in the world and that he was the owner of São Paulo.
In 1954 he asked to be repatriated but his request was rejected and he finally gave up returning to his home country because he lacked the means. (
For that purpose he even tried to be in the good graces of Cardinal Cerejeira, writing a book of very mediocre poetry entitled Fátima.)
In 1956 he fell seriously ill and was hospitalised for a time.

On the evening of March 4, 1959, on the way to meet a lawyer friend while crossing the Nossa Senhora de Copacabana Avenue, in Rio de Janeiro, he was run over by a State's motor vehicle and he got a broken skull, going into a coma.
He died on March 16, 1959, around 5:00 pm, in the Hospital Sousa Dias.
In 1965 his remains were transferred to Lisbon and since 11 November 1966 they are buried in the Alto de São João cemetery.
By that time, his widow also sent Botto's archives to a Portuguese relative of hers who later donated them to Lisbon's Biblioteca Nacional in 1989.
Botto arrived in Rio de Janeiro the day he turned 50, 17 August 1947. He was very well received by the Portuguese community and cherished by local intellectuals like Pompeu de Souza, Macedo Soares, Horácio de Carvalho, Vinicius de Morais or Danton Jobim. The Academia de Letras do Rio de Janeiro received him with welcoming speeches by João Neves Fontoura and Manuel Bandeira. The press of Rio, São Paulo, Recife, Ceará, Baía, was laudatory about him calling him the greatest Portuguese poet alive and publishing encomiastic articles by well-known Brazilian writers. He was invited to banquets, receptions and tribute meetings.
He resided in São Paulo until 1951 and then moved to Rio de Janeiro. He survived on his meager royalties and by writing articles and columns in Portuguese and Brazilian newspapers, doing some radio shows and poetry readings in theatres, associations, clubs and, finally, cheap taverns.
He was doing badly day by day and he ended up living in very shabby conditions (sometimes the couple resorted to feed on flour mixed with water). Always on the move, changing hotels, boarding houses, apartments. Many times he had to loan from friends, which very rarely if ever were refunded by him. His megalomania (due to syphilis) was rampant and he told delirious, outlandish tales like the one of being visited in Lisbon by Mário de Andrade. When they told him Andrade never went to Portugal, Botto retorted "If it was not him then it was Gide or Proust...". He also claimed things like being the greatest living poet in the world and that he was the owner of São Paulo. In 1954 he asked to be repatriated but his request was rejected and he finally gave up returning to his home country because he lacked the means. (For that purpose he even tried to be in the good graces of Cardinal Cerejeira, writing a book of very mediocre poetry entitled Fátima.) In 1956 he fell seriously ill and was hospitalised for a time.
On the evening of March 4, 1959, on the way to meet a lawyer friend while crossing the Nossa Senhora de Copacabana Avenue, in Rio de Janeiro, he was run over by a State's motor vehicle and he got a broken skull, going into a coma. He died on March 16, 1959, around 5:00 pm, in the Hospital Sousa Dias. In 1965 his remains were transferred to Lisbon and since 11 November 1966 they are buried in the Alto de São João cemetery. By that time, his widow also sent Botto's archives to a Portuguese relative of hers who later donated them to Lisbon's Biblioteca Nacional in 1989.
António Botto