Osvaldo Orico (1900–1981) was a Brazilian professor, diplomat, poet, storyteller, novelist, biographer and essayist. He was born in Belém, PA, the son of Manoel Félix Orico and Blandina Orico. He graduated in law from the University of Rio de Janeiro. He initially devoted himself to teaching, as a professor at the Escola Normal, from 1920 to 1932. Subsequent roles included director of Public Instruction of the Federal District, in 1930; director of Education and Culture of the State of Pará, in 1936; Secretary General of the State of Pará, in 1936; director of the Extra-School Education Division of the Ministry of Education and Health, in 1938; head of the Brazilian representation at the Book Exhibition in Montevideo; and director of the Cultural Section of the Brazilian Pavilion at the Exposition of the Portuguese World, in 1940.

He also served as a diplomat in Santiago de Chile, Buenos Aires, The Hague and Beirut. He was deputy delegate at UNESCO; commercial adviser to the Embassy of Brazil in Spain and Belgium; federal deputy for the State of Pará; Minister for Economic Affairs at the UN; and Minister of Brazil at the UNESCO, based in Paris.

He was a member of the Historical Institute of Pará; the Portuguese Academy of History; the Lisbon Academy of Sciences; the Royal Spanish Academy and the Academy of Latinity in Rome. He was the third occupant of Chair 10 at the Brazilian Academy of Letters, elected on October 28, 1937, succeeding Laudelino Freire and received by Academician Cláudio de Sousa on April 9, 1938.

He died in Rio in 1981.^[1]