Antonio Carlos Gomes Belchior, aka Belchior, and his Auto Retrato album Photograph: Public Domain
The mysterious disappearance of one of
Brazil's best-loved composers has left his native country scratching its head and triggered an avalanche of speculation over his whereabouts.
Antonio Carlos Gomes Belchior, better known by his stage name Belchior, shot to fame in the 70s, penning tracks for the likes of Gilberto Gil, Elis Regina and Roberto Carlos, the Brazilian crooner who lent his name to the former Real Madrid and Brazil left-back. He went on to record more than a dozen albums.
But recent reports in the Brazilian press suggest Belchior has vanished and speculation is growing as to whether the musician is dead, alive, in hiding or has faked his disappearance to boost record sales.
Rumours hit fever pitch on Sunday after the weekly news show Fantastico aired a report. Family members said they had not had contact with the composer for two years while reporters tracked down an abandoned atelier in Sao Paulo owned by the 62-year-old singer and found the postbox overflowing with unanswered mail.
"There is no news. I call him everyday," Georges Jean, one of Belchior's agents, told Fantastico.
Speculation about Belchior's whereabouts include claims he had eloped to Uruguay or a beach in north-east Brazil or that he had fled his home to secretly translate Dante's epic, 14,233-line poem, the Divine Comedy, into Portuguese.
One news website published an
online map of possible Belchior sightings, including one in Rio de Janeiro's bohemian district of Lapa and another in Colonia del Sacramento, a small historic town in south-west Uruguay. In interviews, bewildered relatives suggested the composer may have been running away from debts or have been suffering from depression.
"I miss him so much," Jorge Mello, a friend, told one newspaper in the north-east of Brazil where the singer was born. "Can you imagine what it is like to work with someone side-by-side for 18 years and then for that person to disappear?"
News of Belchior's disappearance has sent Brazilian bloggers into overdrive, with hundreds of reported sightings and conspiracy theories, including claims he had staged it all to resuscitate a flagging career and that he would soon return with a new album.
One online community, called Where is Belchior?, has attracted nearly 5,000 followers in a few days. "Is he in jail, dead, alive or in a coma?" asked one blogger.
The musician's plight is reminiscent of the disappearance of the Manic Street Preachers' guitarist Ritchie Edwards. Edwards went missing in February 1995, abandoning his car near a Welsh train station. He was never seen again.
Reports in Brazil suggest Belchior dumped two cars in Sao Paulo before vanishing; one, a Mercedes Benz, had been parked outside a Sao Paulo hotel for more than a year, while the other was abandoned at the city's Congonhas airport in October, reportedly racking up around £6,000 in parking fees.
Meanwhile, fans have sought clues to Belchior's whereabouts in his lyrics:
My gypsy life has drawn me away from you, I will have to live out here for a while, far from you.
São Benedito 
Antonio Ludimá De Araújo Marques natural de Pacujá-CE,seu trabalho com a comunicação começou logo muito cedo,aos 11 anos quando foi jornaleiro na sua cidade.