Cristhiano Aguiar - Granta List

Totally thrilled to be reminded as Granta publishes its list of 20 up and coming Brazilian Novelists that the first name on the list is Cristhiano Aguiar. I spent time with Cristhiano at UFPE in 2004, as
a fellow student on the Letras Course. He was widely seen as the best student, and came first in the class at the end of his undergraduate course. I once shared a bus journey with him through Recife to the University - the campus is on the Varzea, about an hour from Boa Viagem, as he hand wrote  4 very shaky pages of titles and reading `musts` about the Didatura for me, very knowledgeable and kind. Since then he has been publishing, and promoting literature and poetry events in Recife, editing the UFPE Crispim journal, and the same in Paraiba where his family, who are also academics have been based.  He had gone to California recently to do his PHD, but I see that much of his web presence - his long term blog Linguagem Guilhotina 

and other material has disappeared, as I expect his publicity will now be less personal !

Cristhiano  (on right) at Freeport – the Recife Literary festival.

There is a special event at the Brazil Institute, Kings College London to celebrate the Granta Publication 

Join Granta Best Young Brazilian Novelists Michel Laub and Tatiana Salem Levy, translator Stefan Tobler and Granta deputy editor Ellah Allfrey for readings and conversation about the next generation of Brazilian literature and its debut in the English-speaking world. 

Date: Monday 12 November

Time: 18:30

Location: The Pyramid Room, 4th Floor King's Building, Strand Campus, London WC2R 2LS

FREE to attend. Wine and nibbles.

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Now I really don't know what to do !

I feel in a very fragile state. And it is getting worse. Last post was very optimistic. In fact I was so optimistic that I e-mailed my supervisor to tell him what I had been doing. And got no reply. And then got too frightened to look at my e-mail which happens when I am feeling guilty and unable to cope. Along with certain physical symptoms. And so although I have done some work, for the last week or so I have been in a complete and utter funk, and have not written anything. I have put a wonderful organized plan on my Outlook calendar, and printed it all off and put it on my notice board. And I failed last Thursday to achieve the target. And I stopped. So I have been very upset about my bad financial situation and my marraige. So I sorted out my nephew instead of myself. Is this what happens when you have a breakdown? I feel incredibly isolated. the last two days I have slept on my own and got on the computer but only to do things like this. I am crying now. Such a waste if I can't get going.

I could have e-mailed a new contact about a meeting of Latin American educationalists in London today. I did not. I asked and got a little more money from my husband - just about enough to get me to London and back today. I have not gone. I could e-mail a dear friend in Brazil who encourages me to keep writing. I have another dear friend who was at University with me in New Zealand and who is gong there in September with her husband for the first time in many years. She is having an operation this week. I can't find her number.
This is so bad. I am so bad. And completely in a funk, stuck in the Suffolk countryside waiting for it all to come crashing down in my face, so my husband and children can all say I told you so!

A death in Recife: why I do this


I was doing all my time wasteful news searching in the blogs of some more organized friends and found in Recife they are all upset about a teacher who was shot dead this week in her car in Boa Viagem, just going to the supermarket. The young robbers (16, 17) had bought a gun to do robberies with, but then were so nervous when she tried to drive away that they shot her straight in the heart. Her name is Altina Margarida Marinho Coutinho, and she was 57 years old. Her family and friends are so upset that they have mounted a campaign for 'Peace for Tina', to try and do something about such tragic incidents. Tragic for everyone, for the poor young men and for Recife and for Brazil. There is a lot of comment from the 'punishment' brigade and some more reasoned words on how the young men, boys really, might think that street robbery is their only recourse in a land with such a great variation in wealth as Brazil. But Tina was no Brazilian 'millionaire'. She wasn't swanning around in diamonds and flashing US dollars. She cared about her work with all students and for those from the favelas like these young men just as much as her own children. That is why indiscriminate death is so shocking. And the solutions are very hard. I set out on a journey to do this dissertation because I visited North East Brazil and saw for myself. But I knew I needed to study in order to know what the problems were really and what solutions the local Brazilians felt could work. It is a slow process, just like my learning of the Portuguese language. It is easy to call on religious platitudes and fund simplistic 'street kid' projects. Brazil recently had a referendum on the ownership of guns to try and slow down the ease with which small pistols are sold to such 'children'. It failed. But in a country with such a high number of young people - there are not enough jobs. The education system is not robust enough to work with students who drop out like these. And for all the publicity for Tina, many more people, mainly young men, will die by the gun in Recife this week, with very little publicity and fuss from the media. This is my incentive to pass my Masters. It is not of any interest to my family. I think this is why I have such terror. I am alone in this. But I must do it.

Tina's modest car. For more details see Brazilian news sites: Try this http://www.folhape.com.br/folhape/materia_online.asp?data_edicao=14/05/2007

The Recife (and Brazil) streetwise warning for car thieves : The usual advice is to have money available in your car for robbers, stay still and give them what they want. But it is a very frightening experience, and no-one knows what you or the robbers will do if it happens.

Carnival in Recife and Olinda

Carnival! The first time I went to Brazil was in 2002, with my eldest daughter who was 18, and we got taken to Carnival- to watch carnival, to be in the carnival, to dance in the streets, listen to the music in Recife and in Olinda. And it was wonderful.... so I really miss that experience! Anyway, I found this link to some really neat cartoons by ACAPE (the association of Pernambucan Cartoonists) on Carnaval 2007 - Frevendo no traco! Pernambuco - falando para o mundo!

Film, Recife and Rotterdam

I am writing a dissertation. Actually I am re-writing a dissertation. About a wonderful place in Brazil called Recife. Actually about a film called Amarelo Manga (2002) which is set in the city and was made by Claudio Assis. And the reason I am writing about this, is because I have spent a bit of time in Brazil and studying its culture here in London, and I am interested in the most striking thing for any European visitor to the North East of Brazil in particular, and that is the great gap between rich and poor that you see there. And also what can be done.... Anyway, Claudio Assis, and the scriptwriter Hilton Lacerda, and the wonderful cameraman Walter Caravelho, have now made a second film, which is called Bog of Beasts, and which had its 'world premiere' in Rotterdam, where it also got a Tiger Award. And such is the way of film distribution that it may never be shown in London, and my finances don't stretch to Brazil at the moment - so I had to go to Rotterdam really didn't I?! Was that selfish? Necessary?. Yes, yes and yes!

Any way if you are curious - be warned - this is a film for maturity. I mean it. But not a film to take at 'face value'. So next post will be my considered review. Which I have taken time off my dissertation to write. Because bad, ignorant film reviews are all over the internet. But remember - maturity only!