A Conversation with Dr. Paulo Moreira

Dr. Paulo Moreira is Assistant Professor of Spanish & Portuguese at Yale University, and the author of Regionalism and Modernism in the Short Stories of William Faulkner, João Guimarães Rosa, and Juan Rulfo. Originally his dissertation at the University of California, Santa Barbara, Regionalism and Modernism in the Short Stories of William Faulkner, João Guimarães Rosa, and Juan Rulfo is now available in book form in Brazil. He is also currently translating a collection of William Faulkner’s short stories into Portuguese.

In July I had the opportunity to skype with Dr. Moreira. I was in San Diego while he was in Belo Horizonte preparing to attend the 2011 BRASA Conference. This conversation, while presented here in fragments, lasted two hours, and covered a wide range of topics concerning João Guimarães Rosa. I would like to thank Dr. Moreira for his help & support.

Felipe Martinez: Dr. Moreira, I appreciate you taking the time to speak with me.

Paulo Moreira: It’s my pleasure. I really love A Missing Book. It’s very exciting to see something like it in English. You know that Guimarães Rosa is still mostly unknown in the United States, and it’s difficult to find resources in English to share with other people. I attended a meeting last month at Yale where they discussed the idea of expanding the courses on canonized literature, which they call Directed Studies at Yale. They are thinking of expanding it to include Latin America, Asia, and Africa. At this meeting, I talked to people about Guimarães Rosa, and some there, who had never heard of Rosa, were really interested in learning more about him. Unfortunately, we don’t have a really good translation of Grande Sertão: Veredas, but I was able to send them a couple of short stories, and they loved them. You know it’s really all about having translations that are not only “good,” but meaningful. That’s why I’m so looking forward to having a new translation of Grande Sertão: Veredas.

SX.70 or On Translation

what is a word but light on the page?

It’s Nothing, or On A Missing Book

“To travel at night, in pitch darkness takes instinct–your feet have to guess what you can’t see on the ground. You imagine big holes. You expect to hear voices. A few scattered stars; the night a solid mass. [...] At certain times, nothing has meaning.”  (Devil, 170)

Antes Das Primeiras Estórias

Antes Das Primeiras Estórias (a nod to Rosa’s 1962 collection of short stories) is a small collection of four short stories written by a very young, twenty-one-year-old João Guimarães Rosa. First published in the popular Brazilian magazine, O Cruzeiro, in 1929 and 1930, the short stories were each the winner of a monthly contest which guaranteed, as first place prize, publication with illustrations by famous artists of the time. This collection gathers the stories for the very first time.

In regard to the rare book’s launch, Nova Fronteira Editor, and organizer of the book, Janaína Senna, had this to say:

“It’s our intention to pique the curiosity of those who love literature. This is a nice collection [but] whoever reads the stories will find a writer in formation. It’s not the Rosa people have come to love, but rather, it’s someone who writes well, and yet is still looking for a narrative voice.” She goes on: “The stories are so peculiar, we decided not to invite a specialist to write a critical introduction, in case they didn’t have anything to say about the style of the young author who looks more like Edgar Allen Poe than Rosa at his height.”

(Challenge) Fear

“Asked if he will make another Brazilian film, Meirelles mentions the novel Devil to Pay in the Backlands (Grande Sertão: Veredas) a classic of Brazilian literature, often compared to James Joyce’s Ulysses and written by João Guimaraes Rosa which Meirelles has always dreamt of bringing to the big screen. But he also says that he’s afraid the novel is so great, that he doesn’t know if he’ll ever be able to make the film.”

(Source)

 

Ler as palavras de João Guimarães Rosa

Today, for the first time, I read a passage from Grande Sertão: Veredas. In Portuguese, I mean. Ergo the paucity of posts: I’ve been taking Portuguese courses at UCSD.We’re nine weeks in. So while my work on the A MISSING BOOK project has not manifested itself here, it continues on each day as I learn the language. And so back to the beginning: I’ve read the words of João Guimarães Rosa. I can say that now! Ilana Gorban of flamingofeather once told me reading a page out of Grande Sertão: Veredas is like running up a hill only to find another hill. I know I don’t know how difficult the path is ahead, but I see it. I set out.

Travessia (Steps)

In the Spirit of

A Missing Book

Let’s do something just for fun, in the spirit of spreading the word:
I have two copies of The Jaguar & Other Stories to give away. Just email amissingbookATgmailDOTcom with your name, mailing address, and as many or as few words as you’d like to include regarding your interest in João Guimarães Rosa. I’ll randomly select two.

Grand Sertão: Veredas [Out of Nothing]

“If the original does not exist for the reader’s sake, how could the translation be understood on the basis of this premise?”
                                                                           Walter Benjamin, The Task of the Translator

Click on the quote above to see three excerpts of Grand Sertão: Veredas, translated from the Portuguese by Google Translator, and recently published in the fifth issue of the LA-based electro-mag, Out of Nothing.

The Task of the Translator

Walter Benjamin

“For what does a literary work ‘say’? What does it communicate? It ‘tells’ very little to those who understand it. Its essential quality is not statement or the imparting of information. Yet any translation which intends to perform a transmitting function cannot transmit anything but information—hence, something inessential. This is the hallmark of bad translations.”[1]

Sagarana

In prototypical form, Sagarana first appeared in 1938 as a one thousand-page manuscript, entitled Contos, submitted to the Premio Humberto de Campos fiction contest by a thirty eight year-old João Guimarães Rosa, under the pseudonym Viator. The manuscript took second place, but even with the interest of critics and publishers piqued, no one could find Viator to offer a publishing deal. Eight years would pass before the manuscript, pared down to half the number of pages and reworked by the author, would reappear for publication, this time titled Sagarana.

Luis Hrass, in the most intimate portrait of João Guimarães Rosa written in English, wrote of the great author’s penchant for the letter S. Almost a vertical infinity symbol, and fluid like the rivers of which he so often wrote, the S for Guimarães Rosa  was fluid and ideal for