A five-part series exploring one of the world's largest and most complex countries, though its storytellers
Eleanor Wachtel · CBC ·
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Broadcast April 13 - May 11, 2014
A five-part series exploring one of the world's largest and most complex countries, though its storytellers
From soccer, samba and sandy beaches, to drug lords, crime and the endangered rainforest--good or bad--the many images of Brazil fall far short of the real story.
Recently described by the Financial Times as "the world's most exciting nation," Brazil is as large as the United States, with an economy now neck and neck with Britain's. But the country's historic insularity has kept it culturally distinct from its Latin American neighbors, and, beyond the cliches, little known to the outside world.
Brazil's 21-year military dictatorship--which began 50 years ago and lasted till 1985--was brutal like its neighbours Argentina, Chile and Uruguay, with censorship, torture, imprisonment and disappearances. Yet the repression did not receive the same kind of notice, and Brazil itself has only recently established a Truth Commission to discuss what happened during that dark period. Ceremonies just took place across the country to commemorate the coup that launched the dictatorship.
Today Brazil is opening up and coming into its own on the international stage. But as the country prepares to host the FIFA World Cup and the 2016 Olympics, there have been mass protests against government spending on these events, with ongoing internal challenges of crime, corruption, governance and education. At this critical time in its history, Brazil remains a country of fascinating contradictions.
Writers & Company host Eleanor Wachteltraveled to Brazil in March to explore new perspectives on life in this vast, diverse country. The series features conversations with eight dynamic writers, filmmakers and theatre artists, offering the "untold stories" of Brazil.
Part One, April 13, 2014: Ana Maria Machado/ Sergio Rodrigues
Ana Maria Machado(b. 1941, Rio) was already working as a journalist and academic when she was forced into exile during the dictatorship. She became the leading name in a wave of children's writers whose work escaped the censors' notice. She has published more than 100 titles for both children and adults, selling some nineteen million copies, often touching on issues such as the complicated legacy of slavery in Brazil. Currently president of the Brazilian Academy of Letters, Machado has won every major literary prize, from Brazil's National Award for her whole body of work, to the Hans Christian Anderson Medal, the international "Nobel" for children's literature. She lives in Rio.
Machado's titles for children--published in English by Groundwood--includeFrom Another World, Me in the Middle, Wolf Wanted and What a Party!
Also on the program, on the eve of the World Cup, former sports reporter Sergio Rodrigues(b. 1962, Muriae, Minas Gerais) discusses the connections between Brazil's passion for soccer and the country's cultural and political history. A journalist turned fiction writer, he has written the ultimate soccer novel, The Feint, a multi-layered story that also involves secrets from Brazil's dictatorship period. That political dimension is present, as well, in his earlier novel, Elza: the Girl, set during the dictatorship of the 1930s. Rodrigues lives in Rio.
Elza: The Girl will be published later this year in English by AmazonCrossing.
Jose Padilha (b. 1967, Rio), one of Brazil's hottest film directors, switched from a career in finance to making socially minded documentaries about marginalized Brazilian people. His documentary Bus 174--about a dramatic hostage-taking event in Rio that unfolded live on national television--turned him in a new direction. Following it he made two powerful features, Elite Squad and Elite Squad: The Enemy Within, dealing with violence, crime and corruption in the favelas and among the police. Elite Squad won the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival. Padilha's social/political conscience is much in evidence in his latest film--a Hollywood remake of the 1987 thriller RoboCop. He lives in Rio.
Padilha's documentaries include The Charcoal People, Garapa, Secrets of the Tribe and Bus 174. His features include Elite Squad, Elite Squad: The Enemy Within and RoboCop (2014).
Part Three, April 27, 2014: Bernardo Carvalho/ Roberta Estrela D'Alva
Novelist Bernardo Carvalho (b. 1960, Rio) is an award-winning journalist, translator and novelist. His ten books of fiction have earned him many top literary awards. In his novel Nine Nights, he takes readers on a fascinating journey among the indigenous peoples of Brazil's heartland, investigating the mysterious death of a young American anthropologist in the Amazon in 1939. Both fiction and autobiography, it's Brazil's Heart of Darkness. Carvalho lives in Sao Paulo.
Nine Nights, translated by Benjamin Moser, is published in paperback by Vintage.
Writer, director and performer Roberta Estrela D'Alva (b. 1978, Sao Paulo) is making waves with her striking productions that meld epic theatre with the hip-hop culture of the favelas. She brings theatre to the streets and captures the energy of the streets in her work. Her "hip-hopera" Orpheus Mestizo, recently restaged in Sao Paulo, sets the story of Orpheus and Eurydice in the time of the dictatorship. She is also a prize-winning slam poet. She lives in Sao Paulo.
Luis Fernando Verissimo (b.1936, Porto Alegre), is one of Brazil's most beloved and witty writers. As the son of the celebrated novelist Erico Verissimo, he didn't turn to a literary career himself until his 30s, and since then, there's been no stopping him. In both his popular newspaper columns and his charming "literary mysteries," he has engaged a wide readership with his satirical take on the politics and culture of the southernmost region of Brazil, Rio Grande do Sul. Besides his journalism and fiction, he is known as a cartoonist, translator, screenwriter, playwright, adman, ardent football supporter, and saxophonist. He lives in his hometown of Porto Alegre.
Verissimo's mysteries The Club of Angels and Borges and The Eternal Orangutans are available from New Directions, and The Spies from MacLehose Press, all translated by Margaret Jull Costa.
Part Five, May 11, 2014: Karim Ainouz/ Michel Laub
Filmmaker Karim Ainouz (b. 1966, Fortaleza) captures the arid landscape and machismo culture of Brazil's northeast in his work. His interest in sexual, race and class politics is reflected in his feature Madame Sata, which dramatizes the tumultuous life of the flamboyant black performer, street fighter and criminal, Joao Francisco dos Santos, a legendary figure in bohemian Rio of the 1930s. His fifth feature film, Praia Do Futuro, recently premiered at the Berlin Film Festival. A study of male relationships, it connects the coastal northeastern Brazilian city that shaped him with his adopted home, Berlin.
Ainouz's films include Madame Sata, Love for Sale (Suely in Love), I Travel Because I Have to, I Come Back Because I Love You, The Silver Cliff, and his latest, Praia do Futuro.
Michel Laub (b. 1973, Porto Alegre) is one of top names among the younger generation of Brazilian writers recently featured in a special issue of Granta. The prize-winning author of five novels, he is also a journalist. Like much of his work, his first novel in English translation, Diary of the Fall, has an autobiographical flavor that adds power to his storytelling. Drawing on his own experience growing up in the Jewish community of Porto Alegre, it explores themes of memory and intolerance. Laub lives in Sao Paulo.
Diary of the Fall is available from Harvill Secker (Vintage Publishing), translated by Margaret Jull Costa.
