HELENA MORLEY* | MINHA VIDA DE MENINA | *Pen Name of ALICE DAYRELL CALDEIRA BRANT
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2017- Celebrating the love of reading Brazilian literature The year of #lovetoreadBrazil BRAZILIAN BILINGUAL BOOK CLUB| HELENA MORLEY* | MINHA VIDA DE MENINA | *pen name of ALICE DAYRELL CALDEIRA BRANT 7th December 6.30-9 PM 2017- the year of #lovetoreadBrazil CELEBRATORY & ACCLAIMED END OF YEAR LITERARY QUIZ Minha Vida de Menina (1942) by Helena Morley- pen name of Alice Dayrell Caldeira Brant (1880 –1970) translated as The Diary of ‘Helena Morley’ (1957) What does ‘Dear diary’ conjure in your mind or memory? 1 Candid teenage diaries -particularly by girls – make fascinating reading charting evolving perceptions of young women – & necessarily redacted for privacy or censorship & …! Recording personal histories has been practiced by ancient and medieval diarists, e.g. Elisabeth of Schönau through the 17th & 18th century with notable diarists such as Samuel Pepys and lesser known Dorothy Wordsworth, boom in 19th & 20th century multiplicity to zillions of digital diaries in one form or another! We could even speculate that Helena Morley was instigated by traditions Brought by her British grandfather Dr. John Dayrell, mentioned by Sir Richard Burton*, a physician to either the ‘Companhia de Cocais’ or/and São João del Rey Mining Company. Morley’s diary (redacted for sure!) will take you to an assortment of tales from the land of diamonds Diamantina in Minas Gerais– from 5th Jan1893 to 31st Dec1895. * (1869)Explorations of the highlands of the Brazil; with a full account of the gold and diamond mines. Also, canoeing down 1500 miles of the great river São Francisco, from Sabará to the sea. DETAILS OF AVAILABLE PUBLICATIONS: ENGLISH 1957 The Diary of “Helena Morley” translated by Elizabeth Bishop by Farrar, Strauss and Cudahy Reprinted 2008 The Diary of “Helena Morley” Imprint: Virago Modern Classics no. 534 ISBN: 9781844084937 PORTUGUESE 1942 -Minha Vida de Menina Reprinted 1988 Minha vida de Menina: cadernos de uma menina provinciana nos fins do século XIX. Rio de Janeiro: José Olympio Editora, 1988 ISBN 8571647682 Various editions in Brazil Free download from https://raaletras.weebly.com/uploads/4/9/9/4/49942009/6630207-helena- morley-minha-vida-de-menina.pdf SHORT HISTORY OF THE BOOK AND TRANSLATIONS Minha vida de Menina: cadernos de uma menina provinciana nos fins do século XIX is the only book by Alice Dayrell Caldeira Brant, published in her lifetime, and under the pen name Helena Morley in 1942. There have been speculations that it is a re-creation of her childhood notes. Seemingly, there are no available manuscripts of the original(s). There are accounts of how the diary was first published as a book to be distributed among friends, who in turn circulated the 2 book, which ended up becoming popular. However, this could also be part of the spin to promote it. In her September 1942 Note to the first Edition, Helena Morley, tells her readers that her father encouraged her to write a diary from an early age. In addition, while she attended the Teaching College (Escola Normal), her Portuguese language teacher required all girls to produce a daily piece of writing, which could be a description, letter or narrative on a topic of the girls’ choice. She claims that there were various notebooks and loose leaves kept for years at the bottom of a drawer and virtually forgotten. As the author re-read them, she tells the readers that she decided to review and order them for her granddaughters. The idea to collate them into a book emerged naturally, particularly, because she wanted to tell about how different her granddaughters’ lives were compared to those of her early teenage years. Further on, she states that no changes were made in the original texts, but small corrections with occasional substitutions of a few words, which could be difficult to understand. The concluding paragraph carries a special message to her granddaughters. The setting of the diary is in the town (municipality) of Diamantina huddled in the mountain range - Serra dos Cristais - at some 1280 metres above the sea level, a hilly town surrounded by extraordinary natural beauty, part of the Chapada Diamantina. The first settlement in the town was the Arraial do Tijuco, the first name of Diamantina, founded in 1713. A chapel dedicated to Saint Anthony started the settlement there; and following the discovery of diamonds in 1729 the settlement grew swiftly. By the end of the 18th century it had the third largest population of the Captaincy of Geral da Minas, after the capital Vila Rica, currently Ouro Preto, and the prosperous town of São João del-Rei. In the 18th and 19th centuries, Diamantina became a major hub for diamond mining with an influx of many persons and 3 companies from various places in the world, lured by possible riches. Many significant Brazilian Baroque buildings were built, some of which are quite lavish, reflecting the wealth and importance of the town. One of the claims to fame of this town is a freed slave, Chica da Silva (ca. 1732-1796), who was the common law wife of the richest man in Colonial Brazil, João Fernandes de Oliveira (1720-1779), a Portuguese diamond miner. They would have thirteen children and she became part of the Brazilian folklore featuring in various forms of art. Another significant personality was the Brazilian general, politician, distinguished folklorist/ethnographer and polyglot José Vieira Couto de Magalhães (1837-1898), who was born in Diamantina. His 1863 Viagem ao rio Araguaia (Journey to the Araguaya River), 1876 O Selvagem (The Savage) and 1894 Testes de antropologia (Tests of Anthropology) are invaluable sources. Juscelino Kubitschek de Oliveira (1902-1976), born in Diamantina, served as the 21st President of Brazil from 1956 to 1961. His modernization development plans for Brazil, which he pursued with great acumen, ensured that his term of office would become marked by economic prosperity and political stability. In addition, he famously achieved the feat of constructing of new capital of Brazil, Brasília, in the geographic centre of Brazil, in a very short period of time. The town of Diamantina has been granted the accolade of UNESCO World Heritage Site. Helena Morley’s diary has become a symbol of life in Diamantina at the end of the 19th century, most probably because of its translation into Portuguese. The diary narrates the life of the author and her extended family in the town of Diamantina, in the state of Minas Gerais from the age of 12 to 15. The period spans a period of great changes in Brazil with the fianl steps of the Abolition of Slavery and the Proclamation of the Republic of Brazil. In addition to recording various local customs and traditions, the diary is a treasure trove for historians of the Brazilian Portuguese language, as it contains local lexicon and even some local morpho- syntactic forms. A number of typical local dishes are mentioned in the diary, so much so that one could possibly produce a Diamantina recipe book. Alice Dayrell married Augusto Mario Caldeira Brant, who served as a president of the Banco do Brasil in Rio de Janeiro. She became a socialite in the federal capital. Her husband greatly encouraged her to publish the diary, which first appeared as Minha vida de menina published by José Olympio. Needless to say that the author was selective in what she included in her diary and there is evidence that she chose to finish it at the end of 1894. Later commentators have stated that other diary notes of the subsequent years contained accounts of how she met her husband and remain unpublished. She got married in 1900 and the couple had five children. There are many descendants in Brazil and possibly elsewhere. As any published diaries, Morley’s diary is redacted and her husband had a significant input particularly into the translation into English. Diana Athill, in her foreword, refers to the fact that the husband was actually the editor of the diary (2008: vii-xi). 4 On publication, she gained admirers such as the French Novelist Georges Bernanos (1888 –1948), who published The Diary of a Country Priest (1936). He wrote a letter to the author, which was printed on the back jacket of Elizabeth Bishop’s 1957 translation into English. Elizabeth Bishop (1911 –1979), the American poet and short-story writer, resident in Brazil at the time, translated it into English as The Diary of Helena Morley. In Brazil, the book would be reprinted several times. The author would get congratulatory letters, some of which are much later, including one from Guimarães Rosa (1908-1967) from 1958. There are unfounded claims that the diary was translated into French and possibly Japanese (c.f. Elizabeth Bishop in her 1977 Foreword) and Italian. However, there does not seem to be any publication of the said translations or reference to any of the translators. E. Bishop also notes in her 1977 foreword that Dr. (used for lawyers) Augusto Marion Brant and Mrs Brant ‘refused, characteristically, to let it be translated into Russian’. Various biographical accounts of Elizabeth Bishop’s life have been published. The Poetry Foundation contains a succinct outline of her life: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/elizabeth-bishop “During her lifetime, poet Elizabeth Bishop was a respected yet somewhat obscure figure in the world of American literature. Since her death in 1979, however, her reputation has grown to the point that many critics, like Larry Rohter in the New York Times, have referred to her as "one of the most important American poets" of the 20th century. Bishop was a perfectionist who did not write prolifically, preferring instead to spend long periods of time polishing her 5 work.