São Paulo – Itamar Vieira Jr., one of the most widely read Brazilian authors of today, took his knowledge about the literary creation process to the United Arab Emirates. Last week he gave a workshop and participated in a debate with fellow authors in the Arab country. His latest novel Salvar o Fogo – the second in a trilogy whose first novel Crooked Plow made him famous – was the topic of one of the activities.
Vieira traveled by the invitation of Brazil’s Veronika Topic Eleutério, under the patronage of the Clube Literário DuBrasil and UAEscreve. Both groups, which gather mostly Brazilian female authors living in the UAE, take authors and writing professors to the country every year or so for activities focused on the professional development of the participants. The invitation to Vieira was made two years ago.
The author gave a five-day creative writing workshop titled “The Paths of Fiction” and participated in a meeting about his book Salvar o Fogo in Dubai. The workshop tackled the creative process, how stories are born, characters, plotline, narrative voice, and proofreading and text editing. The 11 participants are female writers, most of them with experience and published works.
The meeting about his latest work was an activity of a book club featuring Vieira and 19 participants. Salvar o Fogo tells the story of Moisés, who lives as part of the family in a rural village in Bahia. Through the daily life of the characters, the author discusses religion and society. Vieira talked about the creative process and answered questions.
Writing abroad
“Writing is a solitary activity that can also be solidary. Participating in a a community is essential to fostering the writing process, and it was a privilege to learn some techniques from one of the greatest names in the Brazilian literature of today,” Zana Azeredo, a Brazilian writer living in the UAE who participated in the activities with Vieira, told ANBA.
According to Azeredo, the workshop aimed at accelerating the professional development of authors in the UAE as well as stimulating the artistic and authorial community that create content in Portuguese despite living outside Brazil. She mentions phrases spoken by Vieira that have stayed with her like “We write to bear testimony to our times,” “Writing is being affected by what happens in the world,” “It isn’t enough to imagine stories – we have to turn them into literature,” and “Characters are the soul of the story.”
“He mentions Tolstoy a lot, ‘If you want to be universal, start by painting your own village,’ and his writing about a very specific area of Brazil reflects this and has conquered the world,” said Azeredo, who was joined in the activities by fellow writers Karina Heid, Veronika Topic Eleutério, Ursula Coli, Andrea Salgueirinho, and others. Vieira’s works have been translated into several languages including German, Japanese and Arabic.
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Translated by Guilherme Miranda
