[6] Due to this problem, which was only resolved when the writer was 15 years old through surgery,[5] Cony was literate at home and studied at the Archdiocesan Seminary of São José in the Rio Comprido neighborhood[7] until 1945, abandoning it before ordination as a priest.

The following year, he began studying at the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Brazil, but interrupted the course in 1947,[8] and had his first experience as a journalist at the Jornal do Brasil covering his father's vacation.

[5] In 1955, he started working in the press room of the Rio de Janeiro City Hall as a reporter for Jornal do Brasil replacing his father, who had suffered a cerebral ischemia.

As an editorialist for Correio da Manhã,[12] he wrote critical pieces about the acts of the military dictatorship, which were compiled into a book, O Ato e o Fato, released still in 1964.

To this day, I think I have done nothing else.After facing eight lawsuits, three inquiries, and being arrested six times for "opinion offenses,"[8] he left the country in 1967, self-exiling in Cuba for a year upon being invited by the Cuban government to participate in the jury of the Casa de las americas Prize.

[8] Besides working in print media, Cony was also the director of teledramaturgy at Rede Manchete between 1985 and 1990, having written the first chapters of the station's first miniseries, Marquesa de Santos, the project of the soap opera Dona Beija, and the original idea of Kananga do Japão along with Adolpho Bloch.

Cony received a controversial pension from the federal government due to legislation that authorizes payment of compensation to those who suffered material and moral damages during the military dictatorship.

[19] Weakened by the accident and lymphoma cancer that had accompanied him since 2001,[5] Cony died on January 5, 2018, in Rio de Janeiro, due to intestinal problems and multiple organ failure.