São Paulo – Brazilian poet Wiana Aguiar has launched this month the book “Pepa & Keca – Quem viu rimas por aí?” (loosely translated here as Pepa & Keca – Has Anyone Seen Rhymes Around Here?), which she wrote in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Born in the state of Ceará, graduated in Tourism, she currently lives in the UAE with her family and many of the poems she wrote bring up her universe in the Arab country. “The book has a strong relation with Dubai, it was written there,” she told ANBA via email.
Wiana’s garden in the house she shares with her husband and two daughters, for instance, was the inspiration for the poem “From My Room’s Windows”, which describes the flights and noises of a butterfly. The poem “Camel” was written after a bike ride that the author took with her husband through the bike lanes of Al Qudra, which crosses the desert. “A magnificent place, where the sound of the wind is the silence and the sand dunes’ colors are fascinating,” she says.
Wiana is the mother of Pietra, 11 years old, and 6-year-old Carla, whose nicknames, Pepa and Keca, respectively, give the book its name. The author began to write the book, with no publishing plans in mind, when the teacher of her youngest asked her to take a picture of her daughter playing with water and to write a text on the subject. She then realized she was writing a poem.
Later, the Brazilian author began to write poems randomly about her daughters’ daily lives and would ask them to illustrate them with their drawings. Before that, when she was pregnant of her first daughter and lived in Bahrain, Wiana had written what become later the book’s first poem. Already in Dubai, with her daughters at school, she realized that she had written 30 poems and was encouraged and received help by the mother of a friend of one of her daughters, Patrícia Farias, to publish the material.
The book was launched in Brazil by AME Editorinha. The author says that the book talks about herself as a kid, inspired by Pepa’s and Keca’s childhood. “It talks about nature, animals, portrays the richness of the simplicity of the moments and persons that mark childhood. It’s the viewpoint of a mother expressing itself,” explains Wiana.
Wiana was born in Frecheirinha, a town without a hospital. She was brought to the world by a midwife in the seventh month of the pregnancy. Wiana’s father worked carrying people and cargo in a Volkswagen Kombi, and her mother would stay at home to take care of her. The money was short at that time. When she was four years old, the family moved to Santarém, state of Pará, in search of a better life, and her dad went to work in retail. “I’m the oldest daughter of five siblings and we would be messing and pranking all the time,” she says.
She graduated in Tourism at Fortaleza University and moved to São José dos Campos, 92 km from São Paulo, and later to Montreal, Canada, where she learned French and English and took a specialization course in Marketing and Tourism at Concordia University.
Back in Brazil, the author married a Brazilian man and moved with him to the Middle East, more specifically, in Bahrain, in the first four years, and in Dubai in the next ten, where she’s still living. “The standard of living in Dubai is excellent, the city is cosmopolitan, safe and the people are friendly. I really like the calm lifestyle that Dubai offers,” she says.
The book “Pepa & Keca – Quem viu rimas por aí?” is Wiana Aguiar’s first and was published only in Portuguese. However, she’s planning to translate it to other languages: English, Arabic and Spanish. She launched the book in Goiânia, the capital of Goiás, and will do so in Fortaleza, this Saturday (18), at Ler Livraria, at Viasul mall, 5 pm. She wishes to launch it in Dubai, in October, and in other Brazilian cities, such as Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo and Santarém, next year.
In Dubai, Wiana works with digital communications for Emirates Airline and as a freelance, writing content to websites and translating. In Brazil, the writer worked in cultural exchange agencies and as a flight attendant at TAM. As soon as she moved to Dubai, her first work was at Dnata, a subsidiary of Emirates.
According to information released by the author, half of the money of each purchased book will go to the foreign aid organization Fraternidade Sem Fronteiras (Fraternity Without Borders), which aids orphans from Africa.
Quick info:
Pepa & Keca – Quem viu rimas por aí? (Pepa & Keca – Has Anyone Seen Rhymes Around Here?)
Author: Wiana Aguiar
Illustration: Ana Souza
Pages 56
Publishing House: AME Editorinha
Cost: BRL 30
Translated by Sérgio Kakitani
