São Paulo – In the 1980s, literature professor and researcher Cláudia Falluh Balduino Ferreira travelled to Iraq accompanying her husband to participate in the Babylon Music and Arts Festival. It was in an Iraq that had not been invaded and the Brazilian visited archaeological sites, museums and was marvelled at the Mesopotamian wealth and the treasures of the civilisation she saw. But after seeing the country being destroyed by a war, from afar, and not managing to do anything about the situation, Ferreira decided to maintain the version of the country that she saw in words.
That was how the scholar decided to write “Viagem ao Iraque” (Travelling to Iraq), retelling her trip, published by Editora Kiron, from Brasília. The work has a preface by Leonardo Boff and is narrated in first person. “The focus of my book is to show specific scenes of the regions visited, their beauty, their mystery, their suffering and their joys. They are impressions of the country and its people, aiming to show Iraq before the destruction: a country about to take the giant stride in international, cultural, economic and human relations, when it was destroyed for a reason that was never proven true,” said the researcher to ANBA.
The author writes about cities, monuments, meetings, rivers, palaces, squares, markers, art, ruins, women and men she encountered. “But readers should not think that it will be a sad tale, crying over a country that suffered harms of several natures. The people of Iraq are strong, warriors, and they have already lived many wars throughout their history: the main intention is to maintain my memory of a world and things and elevate them poetically through the report, so that they are not lost in memory or indifference. That is another of the book’s strengths: having been written by a woman, as in women lives a tradition of sublime memory,” said Ferreira.
The Brazilian decided to write the book as she was furious and saddened by the invasion of Iraq. “As I could not grab weapons (poor me!), I picked up a pen and paper and my rage resulted in writing the book,” she said. She describes herself as a reader and lover of travel reports. “From Chateaubriand to Rugendas, from Jean de Léry to Caminha, from Spix and Martius to Darwin, from Isabelle Eberhardt to Alexandra David-Néel, not to mention, of course, the most famous of all: the Iraqi Simbad the Sailor! Chateaubriand is my favourite and it was inspired on his narratives that I wrote about my trip to Iraq.”
In Iraq, Ferreira went on pilgrimage of archaeological sites in regions like Babylon, Aqar Gulf and Nínive, among others. And she said that what took her to Iraq was her passion for the Arabian Nights. “I might find the shadow of Sherazade in the streets, or [that of caliph] Haroun Al Rachid in the corridors of his old palace. There I travelled from North to South, from Kurdistan to Basra." But the professor has not returned to Iraq after the war. “Who knows, one day…” she said.
The scholar took a while to write the book, completed in 2010. She believes that the work will be sought by admirers of the Arab culture and by those expressing solidarity for Iraq. The main idea is to show the content to Brazilians, but she does not discard the possibility of publishing abroad. “I am open to the proposal of some translator and some Arab editors, who like letters and are passionate about travel reports, who may be enchanted by the book,” said Ferreira. The current publication is 84 pages long and will soon be available for purchase at the publishing-house site (www.editorakiron.com.br) and at bookshops Cultura and Saraiva. It will also be sold as an e-book, in digital format.
Cláudia Falluh Balduino Ferreira was born in Anápolis, in the state of Goiás, and graduated in Language and Literature from the University of Brasília. She has a doctorate in Literature and currently works at the same teaching institution in which she graduated as a French Literature, Literary Critique and Maghreb Literature in French Expression professor. Her academic research is focussed on literature and on the sacred, spirituality and religions, mainly in the scope of Islamic Maghreb literature, and on relations between literature and holy art in the Eastern and Western world.
The author
The writer descends from Syrians. Her grandparents were from Bassir, in Southern Syria, and came to Brazil in 1926. “I grew up influenced by family history, told by my grandparents,” she said. In adult life, Ferreira travelled the Arab world, visiting countries like Lebanon, Syria, Morocco and Iraq. As is the case with many descendants of the Arabs, she travelled to learn about the Arab world she had been told about.
“Much no longer exists. The Arab world, like the rest of the planet, is changing very fast. However, it is undeniable that when we are there we recover something that is historic, something immortal and beautiful, which is an immaculate tie of the origins and which we only comprehended there. It is as if our internal nature said: ‘Oh, now I understand… (that feeling, that perception of life, of men, of the essence of our thoughts and feelings, of the unexplainable depths and different everythings that surround us)’,” said Ferreira.
Her professional option was related to her Arab roots. Apart from working at UNB, Ferreira has a blog, Literatura Magrebina Francófona, which is also a window into the research work she develops at the university. The objective of her blog, according to the scholar, is to open the universe of the Africans of North Africa to Brazilians.
The release of book “’Travelling to Iraq” is on Thursday (27), at 6:30 pm, at Sebinho da Asa Norte, in Brasília.
‘Travelling to Iraq’
Author: Cláudia Falluh Balduino Ferreira
Pages: 84
Publishing house: Kiron
*Translated by Mark Ament
