Como jornalista nem sempre posso escrever boas estórias. Tragédias, ofícios, mercado financeiro, assassinatos, terremotos costumam dominar o noticiário. Já disse aqui que adoraria ser uma jornalista que escreve finais felizes ou realizar um serviço publico escrevendo sobre causas que exigem mais atenção que a perpetuação das exceções e anormalidades que abundam nas manchetes. Evita Perón dizia que onde há uma necessidade nasce um direito. Agora, se faz necessário dar uma mão aos amigos e falar sobre uma boa causa. Muita gente se empenhou, mas a casa do escritor gaucho Caio Fernando Abreu não virou museu. É se pensar como um país que despeja milhões num blog da Maria Bethania, com tantas licitações e atores que embolsam grana de filmes não fez por um dos maiores escritores brasileiros do século XX.
Agora, é preciso adaptar a batalha e seguir em frente com ou sem ajuda governamental. E é nesse espírito que nasce a Associação de Amigos do Caio Fernando Abreu que pretende fazer um pouquinho pela memória de um escritor que fez tanto por nossa cultura contemporânea. Hoje entrou no ar o blog CONFIRA AQUI!, uma batalha que vejo minha amiga Liana Farias travar há mais de um ano. Ajude, associe-se e desfrute de um pouquinho do que o Caio deixou para gente e celebre o que seria o aniversario de 63 anos do Caio se estivesse entre nosotros.
Deixo aqui minha pequena contribuição com a matéria que publiquei hoje em Buenos Aires para o jornal em que trabalho. LEIA NA EDIÇAO ONLINE AQUI!!!!!
E os desejos de muitas primaveras com Caio e de mais valorização do que é cultura no Brasil. Com tanta riqueza cultural, chega ser avarento não apoiar.
Saving Caio F.
By Gabriela G. Antunes
BuenosAiresHerald.com staff
Last year, Liana Farias, an obstinate newly graduated communications major from Brasilia , was in a crusade to save Brazilian famous novelist Caio Fernando de Abreu’s house from dismemberment. Unable to pay the mortgage bills for the house where Caio F. spent most of his life, and without any governmental support, the family was losing its battle to create a sanctuary out of his Porto Alegre home.
Since then, the house has been sold to ordinary tenants shattering Farias’ dreams of ever turning the house of one of the most important Brazilian contemporary authors into a museum and institute for young writers. The new tenants, in a good will gesture, have allowed a metal plate to be put in the house’s front gate facade as an indication of where the writer’s lived, a small token of appreciation for a man who has done so much for the countries’ contemporary literary history. A little contest was launched online by a local writer to decide which Caio F. citation should appear in the metal plate.
Brazilian novelist Caio Fernando de Abreu was born in Santiago do Boqueirao in the outskirts of industrial southern city of Porto Alegre in 1948 having published hundreds of short stories, plays, romances and children books in Brazil, Europe and in Argentina. A writer’s writer as well, Caio F. is seen as one of the giants of the Brazilian literature. Writer Lygia Fagundes Telles, an immortal of the Brazilian Literary Academy, used to call him the “passion writer” and one of Brazil’s biggest contemporary short stories writer, Martha Medeiros, calls him “super Caio” making him not only a hit on social networks but also on intellectual circles.
“ Caio F. Is one the most representative writers of his generation. He voiced relevant conflicts of his age, translated into words an entire era. He was also one of the first to freely and pungently to talk about sexuality issues,” explains Ítalo Moriconi, a University professor who compiled the novelist’s life correspondence into a book.
A journalist and columnist for the countries’ top publications such as Veja and Istoe magazine, newspapers O Estado de S. Paulo and Zero Hora, Caio F. has become one of the most important voices for at least two generations being one of the first to talk of about preservation and ecology also raising a flag for sexual minorities before dying of complications related to Aids in 1996.
“I came in contact with Caio’s writings back in 2003 when a friend of mine gave me a short story to read. I got obsessed and started acquiring every book I could get my hands on. I ended up writing a thesis on him. Since that day when I first read Caio’s work we never parted ways. I became involved with the preservation of his legacy, met his family, reunited his friends and started a crusade to preserve his work,” says Liana Farias as she tries to gather support for her new project aimed towards the preservation Caio’s writings.
A new generation of followers emerged since then. One of the writer’s Twitter profiles has over 100.000 followers and a Facebook applicative with his famous quotes is a hit on the internet with thousands of users. His reach even after his death have is turning Caio F. one of the most relevant Brazilian writers of the Twentieth century. “We are getting close to 50.000 followers which demonstrate that keeping his positive memory alive is worth it. With no marketing whatsoever and new followers coming in everyday, I still get surprised by the public response. It just ordinary people who like Caio´s writings,” explained Liliane da Silva Moreira, community manager of one of Caio F’s most prolific twitters accounts.
“I met Caio while working for Abril publishing house in Sao Paulo in the seventies. We were both young journalists, me an inexperienced author and him a more mature writer with a lot of journalist experience and published material. We clicked immediately and our friendship grew into one full of letters, cards, notes and faxes to each other. We travelled a lot together and our experiences quickly transformed into a literary dialogue in the newspapers’ columns,” remembers Caio F.´s famous writer friend Paula Dipp.
Caio F. writings transcended borders and arrived in Argentina by the hands of translator and Professor Graciela Ferrarris, a Cordoba province native, who fell in love with Caio’s work while in College. “I was seduced by his writing style, the neatness of his work, the subtleness and his poetic prose. He was a word affectionate and that becomes very evident in his texts,” stresses Ferrarris explained her reasons for bringing Caio F.’s universe to Argentina by translating his books.
Ferrarris stresses there are big parallels between Caio´s work and Argentine literature. “At some point Caio stated he related more with the “drifter” in Horacio Quiroga´s short stories than contemporary Brazilian authors who he felt were distant and encompassing different contexts,” she says .
Famous artists, writers, singers, astrologists, actors, presenters, journalists are among Caio F. followers and now coming together to try to save his work from forgetfulness. Unable to gather the necessary governmental support to buy out the novelist’s house from an uncertain future, Liana Farias embarked in a new project to preserve the writer’s memory. She gathered the latest novelist friends and admirers into an Association which goal is to preserve the writer’s legacy, organize his writings, honor his memory and bring the reader’s closest to him. The project is being launched today during an event organized by family and friends in Porto Alegre in what was supposed to be the author’s 63rd birthday if he were alive. It is yet another effort to save the writer’s memory from oblivion and government neglecting. As Caio used to say “what is drama today, always, will be quiet in memory tomorrow.”
Tags:Buenos Aires Herald, Caio F., Caio Fernando Abreu, Evita, Liana Farias, Literatura brasileira, Martha Medeiros, Paula Dipp, Porto Alegre
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