João Guimarães Rosa!

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VIRTUAL BRAZILIAN BILINGUAL BOOK CLUB| JOÃO GUIMARAES̃ ROSA| PRIMEIRAS ESTÓRIAS |

11th JUNE 2020, 18.30-21.00

2020 the year of #aFeastofBrazilianLiteraryDelights

Primeiras Estórias (1962) by JOAÕ GUIMARAES̃ ROSA (1908-1967) translated as

The third bank of the river and other stories (1968)

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21 short stories about the rites of passage and the ages of man, never-ending cycle set in the sertões of Minas Gerais.

The translator, Barbara Shelby, made a valiant effort to convey the sense of the quirky contrivances and even advised her US readers to learn Brazilian Portuguese to appreciate João Guimarães Rosa!

João Guimarães Rosa began to publish during an effervescent creative period in arts and sciences in Brazil: almost 3 million books of science and literature plus 22 million textbooks were published in 1956 (IBGE data). In Brazil, from north to south and east to west, the mid-twentieth century spawned a huge number of amazing authors of short stories, novels, chronicles, drama, and poetry.

João Guimarães Rosa opted for a life as a diplomat, having realised that medicine was not his calling. He applied his story-telling skills and writing fiction became a lifetime activity. However, his literary achievements were not bred in the vacuum.

You will not miss the author’s cleverly concocted portmanteau words, using ideas from international auxiliary languages, mostly Brazilian-flavoured, but virtually impossible to render in translation without losing some of the original intention.

DETAILS OF AVAILABLE PUBLICATIONS:

ENGLISH

1968 - The third bank of the river and other stories translated by Barbara Shelby (1932-2014) published by Alfred A. Knopf, New York ISBN 9780394448404 ASIN B0000CPMN4 Various reprints are available.

Free download: https://archive.org/details/thirdbankofriver00rosa

PORTUGUESE

1962 - Primeiras Estórias published by Livraria Editora José Olympio, Rio de Janeiro. Various editions and reprints in Portuguese e.g ISBN 10: 8432204544 ISBN 13: 9788432204548 ISBN-10: 8520929788 ISBN-13: 978-8520929780 Free downloads: Various – some of the short stories are available as a separate download, no e-book in Portuguese, also from

http://static.recantodasletras.com.br/arquivos/5206036.pdf?1430610030

http://lelivros.love 2

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SHORT HISTORY OF THE BOOK AND TRANSLATIONS

The collection of short stories entitled Primeiras Estórias (First Stories), were not actually the first set of short stories published by João Guimarães Rosa. The anthology contains twenty- one loosely assembled short stories framed by a sequence specifically created for the 1962 edition. Eleven of those short stories were published earlier in the daily newspaper O Globo in April 1961: O famigerado, A terceira margem do rio, A Menina de Lá, Sequência, Irmãos Dagobé, As Margens da Alegria, O Cavalo Que Bebia Cerveja, O Inverso Afastamento in the anthology published as Os Cimos, A Benfazeja, Tarantão, Meu Patrão, Soroco, Sua Mãe, Sua filha. Please see table below for translated titles.

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The original 1962 anthology was prepared jointly by the author and the publisher José Olympio (1902-1999). It contains an index of the titles of the short stories, followed by a sequence of pictorial ideographic symbols. Some of the symbols appeared scattered on the dustjacket. The short story list accompanied by a set of symbols is printed on front and back flaps of the dust jacket. The illustrations on the front and back dust jacket show the symbol of infinity ∞, which appears in other J. G. Rosa’s writings. The symbols add a possibility of an additional semiotic reading.

Like many writers, J. G. Rosa tended to draft sketches and drawings along with his notes for stories. The author worked punctiliously to produce the symbolic illustrations in the graphic design with publisher. Perhaps, a nod to his predecessors such as Raul Pompeia (1863-1895), who illustrated his 1888 novel O Ateneu, and Mário de Andrade (1893-1945) his Macunaíma (1928), the latter featuring Brazilian petroglyphs. They are equally reminiscent of cave paintings and diverse writing systems used throughout world since the most remote past. Some of the ideograms echo Brazilian Cordel literature illustrations (chapbooks). Subsequent editions did not include the original dust jacket with its illustrations.

One ought to highlight the fact that João Guimarães Rosa belonged to circle of publishers and journalists. He obtained support from them early in his writing career. Those journalistic literary publications became an essential part of circulation of his literary works. He was an accomplished self-publicist and exploited his network of contacts to promote his works. As a younger writer, he also published stories and poems under various pen names.

Often his pieces were reprinted in numerous newspapers, journals including a small medical periodical Pulso published by the Sidney Ross Lab (manufacturer of analgesics such as Melhoral and upset stomach relief medicines - Sonrisal and Sal de Frutas Andrews ). In Pulso, he published fifty-five short stories (each a page and half in length) from May 1965 to July 1967, forty of which were assembled for Tutameia - Terceiras Estórias (1967).

J. G. Rosa was known to charge publishers to print his articles. Paulo Francis (1930- 1997) told the readers of the magazine Realidade in 1967 that the author charged an exorbitant amount to become a regular contributor to the magazine Senhor. Our book club members will recall that Clarice Lispector published her works in that magazine (See the February 2020 post). His pieces appeared in various places, for example: O Globo, Pulso, Correio da Manhã, O Jornal (Rio de Janeiro), O Cruzeiro, Manchete, Senhor, Letras e Artes (a suplement of A Manhã ), Diário de Minas (Minas Gerais), Folha da Manhã (São Paulo), O Estado de S. Paulo (São Paulo), and Jornal de Letras (Rio de Janeiro).

Networking was straightforward for J. G. Rosa. His circle of friends included for example: the literary critics Álvaro Lins (1912-1970), Franklin de Oliveira (1916-2000) and Josué Montello (1917-2006), the publisher Pedro Bloch (1914-2004), the historian and politician José Carlos de Macedo Soares (1883-1968), a journalist Joel Silveira (1918-2007), who served

as a WWII correspondent covering the contributions of the Brazilian Expeditionary Force (FEB)

in Italy, fellow diplomats, journalists and writers such as Antonio Olinto (1919-2009) and Assis 4 Page ©BRAZILIAN BILINGUAL BOOK CLUB –EMBASSY OF BRAZIL IN LONDON All rights reserved - Creator & Convenor -©Nadia Kerecuk http://londres.itamaraty.gov.br/en-us/book_club.xml

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Chateaubriand (1892-1968) and the diplomat, writer and foreign affairs minister João Neves da Fontoura (1887-1963).

The table below shows where the short stories were printed first. It also has the titles which appeared in the first translation by Barbara Shelby. The last column shows six stories which appeared in a more recent translation by David Treece. The numbers to the left of the translated titles indicate the order in which they appear in the respective publications.

J. G. Rosa structured the sequence of the short stories in his 1962 Primeiras Estórias featuring the same boy character in the first story, As margens da alegria, and the last, Os Cimos, thus, creating a sort of infinite cycle. The central short story is O espelho and seemingly the author intended to generate a kind of reflection, or echo, with recurrence of the story themes in the two halves of the anthology. However, the English translation by Barbara Shelby does not follow the sequencing of the original except the first, last and middle stories.

Primeiras Estórias Original BARBARA SHELBY D. Treece in 1962 publication Translation The Jaguar and Other 1961 The third bank of the river and Stories In O Globo other stories 2001 1968 – order number indicated order number before title indicated before title 1 As Margens da Alegria April 1961 1- The Thin Wedge of 2- The Bounds of Happiness Happiness 2 Famigerado April 1961 20-Notorius 3 Sorôco, sua mãe e sua filha April 1961 19-Sorôco, His Mother, His 6- Soroco, His daughter Mother, His daughter 4 A Menina de Lá April 1961 18-The Girl from Beyond 5 Os Irmãos Dagobé April 1961 17-The Dagobé Brothers 6 A Terceira Margem do Rio April 1961 16-The Third Bank of The River 5 -The Third Bank of The River 7 Pirlimpsiquice 15-Hocus Psychocus 8 Nenhum, nenhuma 14-No Man, No Woman 9 Fatalidade 13-My Friend The Fatalist 10 Sequência April 1961 12-Cause And Effect 11 O Espelho 11-The Mirror 4- The Mirror 12 Nada e a Nossa Condição 10-Nothing and the Human Condition 13 O Cavalo que Bebia Cerveja April 1961 9-The Horse that Drank Beer 14 Um Moço Muito Branco 8-A Young Man, Gleaming White 15 Luas-de-mel 7-HoneyMoons 16 Partida do Audaz Navegante 6-The Audacious Navigator 1- The Audacious Mariner Sets Sail 17 A Benfazeja April 1961 5-The Woman Of Good Works 18 Darandina 4-Much Ado 19 Substância 3-Substance 20 Tarantão, meu patrão... April 1961 2-Tantarum, My Boss 21 Os Cimos/ originally O inverso 21-Treetops 3-Treetops

appeared as O inverso afastamento 5

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The distinguishing feature of the stories is that they contain a great deal invented language featuring a variety of portmanteaux, neologisms, some of which have no direct recognizable sense; the same idea under numerous near-synonyms for the purposes of alliteration and parallelism; experimentation with prefixes and suffixes in word formation; placing of hyphens between the words of phrases to yield the impression of a single compound word; word order inversions; agglutination of two or more words; classes of words with changed functions (verb, adjective, adverb); and transitive verbs used as intransitive and vice-versa.

Experimentation with logic and syntax is also used in his works. Such experimentations date back to studies in logic and rhetoric dating back to Plato and others. The Portuguese settlers brought the European Trivium and Quadrivium traditions to Brazil, employed by the Jesuits in particular. Machado de Assis (1839-1908) used logic and syntax to great effect, and even poked fun at rhetoricians. At the phonological, lexical, and syntactic levels, J. G. Rosa’s innovations resonate with earlier authors, creations, and practices: in Brazil, particularly with Machado de Assis, Mário de Andrade and Clarice Lispector.

Thematically, the first, third and fourth stories instantly remind us of Lewis Carroll’s Alice and J. R.R. Tolkien’s hobbits along with magical fantastic fairy tales, legends, epic tales, and world mythologies including sagas. In 1928, the Nobel literature prize was awarded to Sigrid Undset (1882 -1949), who included Nordic Scandinavian sagas, became a major source for twentieth century novels. Monteiro Lobato (1882-1948), who published translations and adaptations of world legends and fairy tales from 1921 to 1947 in approximately 20 anthologies, greatly contributed to the broad dissemination of such stories. Interest in oriental stories in Brazil date back to Emperor Dom Pedro II of Brazil, who translated world tales including the Arabian Nights. The extraordinary mathematician, Júlio César de Mello e Souza (1895-1974), using the pen name Malba Tahan, published numerous world tales from 1925 to 1974, including ancient middle and far eastern stories. J. G. Rosa certainly read all such books as a young reader. Also, as he learned various languages expanding further his reading horizons.

Because J. G. Rosa, made creative experiments with the Brazilian Portuguese language, there is an excess of focus on his portmanteau words but a limited consideration of the influence of international auxiliary languages. This has been generally overlooked by literary critics and scholars. He learned the international auxiliary language Esperanto. He also had a keen interest in German language and culture and knew about various Germanic and Nordic mythologies. He read Sanskrit, Greek and even Finnish (Tolkien explored the creative forms of language use in the Kalevala). He was no specialist in philology or linguistics but was a linguist often stating that he spoke and understood various languages which included the Brazilian indigenous language Tupi. Certainly, he drew on a broadly disseminated practice.

J. G. Rosa drew on Brazilian local folk legends (some had migrated from Portugal to Brazil) similarly to other Brazilian authors of the 19th and early 20th centuries. For instance, he

modeled his Sagarana (1946) on the northern European tradition of sagas blending it with local folk and indigenous tales. In the 1946 edition, one finds nine short novelette types. The 6

portmanteau ‘sagarana’ is made up with two words saga + rana. According to J. R. Rosa’s Page ©BRAZILIAN BILINGUAL BOOK CLUB –EMBASSY OF BRAZIL IN LONDON All rights reserved - Creator & Convenor -©Nadia Kerecuk http://londres.itamaraty.gov.br/en-us/book_club.xml

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2020 – A Feast of Brazilian Literary Delights Celebrating the birth centenary of CLARICE LISPECTOR (1920-1977), JOÃO CABRAL DE MELO NETO (1920-1999) and JOSÉ MAURO DE VASCONCELOS (1920-1984) #aFeastofBrazilianLiteraryDelights account the word rana originates from the Tupi language and means ‘in the manner of’, therefore, Sagarana, written in the manner of a saga. However, rana could be interpreted as the Latin rana – frog. He was a keen collector of frogs and toads from his childhood times and even used a frog/toad in illustrations in his works, possibly a self-referential symbol. Curiously, the source may have been Macunaíma (1928) by M. de Andrade, which had impressed J. G. Rosa at one point, as he claimed. Well, book club members will recall that muiraquitã originated among Amazonian indigenous tribes, usually represented by a frog and carved in stone (mostly jade or nephrite) is often carried as an amulet.

Much of the work on invented languages started from observations of children’s language and the nineteenth century renewed interest regarding the origin of the faculty of language. Nonsense language forms, which are playful, are an innate gift that all young children have. Often a child, even before being literate, creates a new language (including some nonsense humorous words) to talk to ‘imaginary friends’. Some bi- or multilingual children skillfully invent a whole set of such words and even translate them into their first language, provided they want to share it with another child, sibling, or adult. Authors of international auxiliary languages and nonsense literature have used this source of creativity in their own creations for quite a long time.

Jabberwocky (1871), a nonsense poem, illustrates this process. It was later integrated into the 1871 novel Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There. In Brazil, the poem was translated as Jaguadarte by Augusto de Campos (1931-). The Hunting of the Snark (An Agony in 8 Fits) by Lewis Carroll (1832-1898) illustrated how natural languages can be used to create sense from nonsense, myth and poetry.

The international auxiliary languages such as Volapük, Esperanto, Ido, Interlingue, Novial, and various J.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973) invented languages as well as literary nonsense, e.g. Edward Lear (1812-1888), developed mostly in the second half of the nineteenth century and early twentieth century. It was an aesthetic which ensued from earlier attempts to create

‘universal languages’.

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J.R.R. Tolkien was a writer, poet, philologist, academic and creator of high fantasy works such as The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion. In 1930, he spoke about his invented languages at the Esperanto Congress in Oxford and the following year, he gave a paper ‘A Secret Vice’ to the Johnson Society. An excellent account was published in A Secret Vice. Tolkien on Invented Languages by J. R. R. Tolkien, edited by Dimitra Fimi and Andrew Higgins by HarperCollinsPublishers in 2016.

Such invented languages benefitted from a long history of ideas in philosophical languages from seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Francis Bacon, Lord Verulam (1561- 1626), discussed the ‘real character’ in language wrote a utopian novel New Atlantis (1726) creating the word/name Bensalem and the Bensalemites. Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) parodied New Atlantis in his Gulliver’s Travels (1626) and created two island nations, Lilliput and Blefuscu, the barbarous Yahoos and invented a language for the Houyhnhnms, a race of civilized horses. Francis Lodwick (1619-1694), who lived in London and was a merchant of Flemish origin, pioneered an artificial language, or a philosophical language, with a universal alphabet. John Wilkins, an Anglican clergyman, one of the founders of the Royal Society, wrote An Essay towards a Real Character and a Philosophical Language (1668). George Dalgarno (c.1616- 1687) published a complete method to teach people with hearing impairment, the Didascalocophus or the Deaf and Dumb man's tutor (1680) and wrote an artificial language Ars signorum (Art of Signs, 1661). Gottfried Leibniz (1646-1716) published his De Arte Combinatoria (On the Art of Combination) in 1666, he aimed at creating an alphabet of human thought and a perfect language ‘Characteristica Universalis’.

The created artificial, philosophical, or universal languages were the precursors of computer languages. Equally, artificial, or universal languages boosted ciphering with an increased need to encrypt diplomatic messages conveyed to various European Royal Courts during those centuries. J. G. Rosa was certainly conversant with encryption systems. As a diplomat, he travelled conveying messages from post to post in Europe during WWII, for example. Some of the notable creators of invented languages and literary works, served as both as decoders of encrypted messages in both WWI and WWII. J. R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973) served as a signals officer in WWI.

The creative use of invented languages has had notable examples. James Joyce (1882- 1941) became well known for his novel Ulysses (1922, serialised 1918-1920) but his most experimental work is Finnegans Wake (1939) written over 17 years. James Joyce created a unique polyglot-language for the novel with composite words originating from some sixty to seventy world languages. It is a hugely complex work and some of his invented words he coined became common currency such as ‘quark’ and ‘sub-atomic’ in the English language. Another prolific fantasy writer, Roald Dahl (1916-1990), a physician, diplomat, writer and WWII intelligence officer, also created his own language gobblefunk for the BFG (Big Friendly Giant, 1982), which may have enhanced by the observation of stroke victims’ speech.

J. G. Rosa created his invented words and expressions using them in his literary works. 8

In Primeiras Estórias, there is a significant number of portmanteau words and instances of Page ©BRAZILIAN BILINGUAL BOOK CLUB –EMBASSY OF BRAZIL IN LONDON All rights reserved - Creator & Convenor -©Nadia Kerecuk http://londres.itamaraty.gov.br/en-us/book_club.xml

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2020 – A Feast of Brazilian Literary Delights Celebrating the birth centenary of CLARICE LISPECTOR (1920-1977), JOÃO CABRAL DE MELO NETO (1920-1999) and JOSÉ MAURO DE VASCONCELOS (1920-1984) #aFeastofBrazilianLiteraryDelights creative use of the grammar of Brazilian Portuguese. In addition, there are plenty of allusions and references to numerous anecdotes, micro-stories, fantastic tales, ideas and words from the marvellous Brazilian literary canon, which are covertly embedded in João Guimarães Rosa’s narrative: Machado de Assis, Clarice Lispector, Viscount of Taunay, José de Alencar (O Sertanejo), Aluísio Azevedo, Júlio Ribeiro, Coelho Neto, Euclides da Cunha, Rui Barbosa, João do Rio, Graça Aranha, Mário de Andrade, José Lins do Rego, Monteiro Lobato, Autran Dourado, Dalton Trevisan, Helena Morley, Mário Palmério and more.

An additional source for local tales was his father, Florduardo Pinto Rosa, a grocery shop owner in the small town Cordisburgo, who would send his son stories. The correspondence between father and son reveals how earnestly, J. G. Rosa requested tales and details from life in Minas Gerais from his father. Florduardo would scribble them in the evenings and send to his son, who would seek further details especially for his only novel. By reading their correspondence, it seems that the father was an excellent writer and storyteller and that his son appropriated some excellent pieces of his narrative.

Primeiras Estórias was translated in English as The third bank of the river and other stories by Barbara Shelby and published in 1968. She was in contact with J. G. Rosa whilst doing the translation. She indicated that he offered a translation for the title of his short story Pirlimpsiquice (created from Monteiro Lobato’s pirlimpimpim) as Hocus Psychocus. The translation conveyed the spirit of the tales but did not reproduce the multiple portmanteaux or syntactic constructions.

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Barbara Shelby Merello (1932-2014) grew up in New Jersey, USA. She attended the University of Texas at Austin and worked in cultural exchange for the United States Information Agency in Brazil, Ecuador, Spain, Costa Rica, Argentina, Peru and Washington DC, with short postings at the United Nations, and in Belgium, Zaire, and Tunisia from 1960 to 1987.

Barbara Shelby- 1977 Argentina

Barbara Shelby translated twelve books by Brazilian authors: Jorge Amado, Gilberto Freyre, Antonio Callado, João Guimarães Rosa and Dom Helder Camara for Alfred A. Knopf and other publishers. Barbara Shelby married Agustin Merello, an Argentine national in 1976. The couple retired to Austin, Texas in 1987. The couple were linked to programmes at the University of Texas. Barbara also taught at the LBJ Library for ten years. The couple travelled widely, visiting Agustin's family in Argentina, the North American Institute in Barcelona, of which Barbara had been a director, her small medieval house in Talamanca in Spain, and the market town of Tregaron in Wales, from which her ancestor Evan Shelby emigrated for the USA in 1735.

SHORT BIOGRAPHY

JOAÕ GUIMARAES̃ ROSA (27 June1908-19 November1967)

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João Guimarães Rosa was a writer and diplomat. He was born in the small town Cordisburgo, in the state of Minas Gerais on 27th June 1908 and died in Rio de Janeiro, in the state of Rio de Janeiro on 19th November 1967. He was the first child of six of Florduardo Pinto Rosa and Francisca Guimarães Rosa. One pen name he used was the Latin word Viator (travelling

person).

His parents had a grocery shop suppling their hamlet residents and various travellers, 11

the tropeiros. His father was also a justice of peace, a hunter and storyteller. The main attraction Page ©BRAZILIAN BILINGUAL BOOK CLUB –EMBASSY OF BRAZIL IN LONDON All rights reserved - Creator & Convenor -©Nadia Kerecuk http://londres.itamaraty.gov.br/en-us/book_club.xml

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2020 – A Feast of Brazilian Literary Delights Celebrating the birth centenary of CLARICE LISPECTOR (1920-1977), JOÃO CABRAL DE MELO NETO (1920-1999) and JOSÉ MAURO DE VASCONCELOS (1920-1984) #aFeastofBrazilianLiteraryDelights in Codisburgo is the Maquiné Cave (with various chambers), discovered by the farmer Joaquim Maria Maquiné. The Danish naturalist Peter Wilhelm Lund (1801-1880) studied the Ice Age megafauna in the Karst geology in Minas Gerais from 1834. He also studied the Maquiné Cave. J. G. Rosa was fascinated by the cave and may have heard the stories about Peter W. Lund.

J. R. Rosa demonstrated a precocious talent for languages by teaching himself French at the age of seven using a grammar and dictionary that a traveller gave to him. He spoke various languages: French, German, English, Spanish, Italian, Esperanto, a bit of Russian and could read many other languages including non-Indo-European languages. He also developed a keen interest in the grammars of a significant number of languages including the Brazilian indigenous language Tupi, Língua Geral.

Later, he would state in an interview conducted by one of his cousins that

Falo: português, alemão, francês, inglês, espanhol, italiano, esperanto, um pouco de russo; leio: sueco, holandês, latim e grego (mas com o dicionário agarrado); entendo alguns dialetos alemães; estudei a gramática: do húngaro, do árabe, do sânscrito, do lituânio, do polonês, do tupi, do hebraico, do japonês, do tcheco, do finlandês, do dinamarquês; bisbilhotei um pouco a respeito de outras. Mas tudo mal. E acho que estudar o espírito e o mecanismo de outras línguas ajuda muito à compreensão mais profunda do idioma nacional. Principalmente, porém, estudando-se por divertimento, gosto e distração.

I speak Portuguese, German, French, English, Spanish, Italian, Esperanto, a bit of Russian; I read Swedish, Dutch, Latin and Greek (but glued to the dictionary); I understand some of the German dialects and have studied the grammars of Hungarian, Arabic, Sanskrit, Lithuanian, Polish, Tupi, Hebrew, Japanese, Czech, Finish and Danish; I have poked around a few others. But all badly. I find that studying the spirit and mechanism of other languages helps a great deal to understand one’s native language more deeply. Particularly, if one does it for the sake of entertainment, pleasure, and a pastime. [N.K.]

At the age of ten, he went to Belo Horizonte, the capital of Minas Gerais, to attend school and lived with his grandparents. He attended a German high school, Colégio Arnaldo. He read medicine at the faculty of Medicine of the University of Minas Gerais, graduating in 1930. He joined the Minas Gerais Public Security Service as a medical officer (captain). On 27th June 1930, at the age of 22, he got married to Lígia Cabral Penna (she was 16) and they had two daughters Vilma and Agnes. He worked as a doctor in the town of Itaguara (Itaúna municipality in Minas

Gerais).

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In 1929, J. G. Rosa published his first literary short story ‘O mistério de Highmore Hall’ in the magazine O Cruzeiro. His poetry collection Magma, submitted anonymously, was awarded the Brazilian Academy of Letters Prize in 1936. He served as a volunteer military officer for a short stint but decided to join the Brazilian Foreign Service in 1934.

J. G. Rosa served as a deputy consul, in Hamburg, Germany (1938-42). There he met Aracy Moebius de Carvalho (1908-2011), who was born in Rio Negro in Paraná of German descent and was married with a son. She was appointed as a diplomatic clerk and worked in passport issue section. She assisted J. G. Rosa to help Jews and others escape from Nazi Germany. When the consulate building was bombarded, J. G. Rosa salvaged the documents from the building in ruins. He was interned in Baden-Baden by the Nazis for four months and was later released in a diplomat swap. J. G. Rosa fell in love with Aracy and he later married her. Aracy de Carvalho Guimarães Rosa has been recognized with the title of Righteous Among the Nations.

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On his return to Brazil, he was appointed to serve at the Embassy of Brazil in Colombia (1942-44). He also served as the head of Ministry of Foreign Affairs Documentation Service (1944-46); as a diplomat he travelled with the Brazilian Delegation to the Paris Peace Conference in 1946 and the Brazilian Delegation to Ninth Pan-American Conference, Bogotá (1948); and was promoted to the rank of Counsellor serving at the Embassy of Brazil, Paris (1949-51); he served as the Head of the Foreign Ministry Office (1951-53) and as the Budget Head (1953-58) at Ministry of Foreign Affairs; promoted to the rank of Ambassador (1958-62); then headed Borders Division (1962-67).

The publication of Sagarana in 1946 brought acclaim to him. In May 1952, Guimarães Rosa went on a journey to Mato Grosso do Sul, a ten-day journey with eight vaqueiros (horse- mounted cattle herders in Brazil), 300 heads of cattle depicted in his short story ‘Com o vaqueiro Mariano’ published later in the posthumous anthology Estas estórias (1969).

The journey to the sertões was seemingly a preparatory endeavor to write his only novel Grande sertão: Veredas (1956) translated in English as The Devil to Pay in the Backlands (1963) by Hariet de Onis and James L. Taylor. In the same year he published Corpo de baile a collection of novelettes. In the latter two, he sought to experiment with the use of language, as described above for Primeiras estórias. The novel is derived from ideas and structure of Os Sertões: Campanha de Canudos (1902) by Euclides da Cunha (1866-1909). He particularly perused the parts 1 The land and 2 The Man. Even the title of J. G. Rosa’s novel Grande sertão: Veredas seems to have been inspired by part 1 in which Euclides da Cunha depicts the sertão, and specifically As caatingas part 1, IV which begins with, ‘Então, a travessia das veredas sertanejas é mais exaustiva que a de uma estepe nua.’(NK’s bold highlight, page 43 of the critical edition 584pp). E. da Cunha describes the geology, topography, vegetation, climate and human types, sertão dwellers - Our book club read this major work in the first year and there was a special edition (see https://sistemas.mre.gov.br/kitweb/datafiles/Londres/en-us/file/cul-bookclub-15- ossertoes.pdf )

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In 2008, the Embassy of London celebrated the centenary of the birth of J. G. Rosa with an art exhibition at its Galeria 32 and a short two-day seminar. A collection of black and white photographs of the Sertão Veredas in Minas Gerais by the Brazilian art photographer Walter Firmo (Guimarães da Silva) (1937- ), showing trails between the cities of Andrequicé and Sete Lagoas, in the north State of Minas Gerais, in which Walter Firmo captured the rustic landscape, memorable characters and authentic customs of the local communities.

His daughter, Vilma Guimarães Rosa Reeves (1931-), also a writer, presented the updated edition of Relembramentos (2008) published by Nova Fronteira. The book is a panegyric collection of memoirs and stories about her father, focusing on her mother Lígia Guimarães Rosa. Numerous personal letters are included in the edition. It also contains the commemorative stamp of her father.

The Casa Guimarães Rosa Museum in Cordisburgo holds exhibitions of the writer’s life and works, as well as tours. J. G. Rosas lived in the house from 1907 to 1917, which dates back to the 19th century and is a listed building. It also includes a replica of his father’s grocery store. The museum holds a celebratory week every year and offers tour of the museum and sites of interest in the area. The Museum was created in 1974. There is a tour guide video in Portuguese: http://museus.cultura.gov.br/espaco/6644/

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Awards: Brazilian Academy of Letters Poetry award (1937); Felipe d'Oliveira prize (1946); Machado de Assis prize (1956); Carmen Dolores Barbosa prize (1957); Paula Brito prize, (1957); Brazilian Pen Club award (1963).

Main works

1929 - Caçador de camurças, Chronos Kai Anagke, O mistério de Highmore Hall and Makiné 1936 - Magma 1946 - Sagarana 1947 - Com o Vaqueiro Mariano 1956 - Corpo de Baile 1956 - Grande Sertão: Veredas (novel) 1962 - Primeiras Estórias 1967 -Tutameia -Terceiras Estórias 1969 - Estas Estórias (posthumous) 1970 - Ave, Palavra (posthumous)

Other sources:

❖ Museu Casa Guimarães Rosa http://museus.cultura.gov.br/espaco/6644/ Page ©BRAZILIAN BILINGUAL BOOK CLUB –EMBASSY OF BRAZIL IN LONDON All rights reserved - Creator & Convenor -©Nadia Kerecuk http://londres.itamaraty.gov.br/en-us/book_club.xml

14-16 Cockspur Street London SW11Y 5BL

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❖ Archives, purchased from the family in 1973 held by the University of S. Paulo – reference BR USP/IEB JGR http://www.ieb.usp.br/joao-guimaraes-rosa/ ❖ On primary sources see: Gênese e memória (1995) editted by Philippe Willemart, Associação de Pesquisadores do Manuscrito Literário published by Annablume, 1995, 601 pages, ISBN 8585596325, 9788585596323

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=IbLr55ki_vMC&dq=arquivos+de+Guimaraes+rosa+USP&source= gbs_navlinks_s ❖ Correspondence with translators in Portuguese: • ROSA, João Guimarães. (2003) Correspondência com seu tradutor alemão Curt Meyer-Clason (1958-1967). Rio de Janeiro: Nova Fronteira: Academia Brasileira de Letras; Belo Horizonte: Ed. da UFMG. • João Guimarães. Correspondência com seu tradutor italiano Edoardo Bizzarri. (2003) Rio de Janeiro: Nova Fronteira. ❖ ROSA, Vilma Guimarães (2014) Relembramentos: João Guimarães Rosa, meu pai. Rio de Janeiro: Nova Fronteira

❖ On J.R.R. Tolkien https://www.tolkiensociety.org/society/ about A Secret Vice. Tolkien on Invented Languages by J. R. R. Tolkien, edited by Dimitra Fimi and Andrew Higgins https://www.harpercollins.co.uk/9780008131395/a-secret-vice-tolkien-on- invented-languages/ https://www.tolkiensociety.org/blog/2016/04/18-reasons-to-read-a-secret-vice- tolkien-on-invented-languages/

❖ About the Translator: Barbara Shelby Merello (21st Jun 1932- 14th Feb 2014) Barbara Shelby Merello: A translator's life in letters The Texas Writer, May 1999: http://kinemage.biochem.duke.edu/barbara/Merello_TXwriter Barbara Shelby Merello: ADST_USIA_exit_interview",January 27, 2000 Copyright 2005 ADST

Enjoy your reading! 2020: #aFeastofBrazilianLiteraryDelights

HAPPY READING!

Attendance is free, but booking is essential: [email protected] ©Nadia Kerecuk Creator and Convenor of the © Brazilian Bilingual Book Club at 17

the Embassy of Brazil in London Page ©BRAZILIAN BILINGUAL BOOK CLUB –EMBASSY OF BRAZIL IN LONDON All rights reserved - Creator & Convenor -©Nadia Kerecuk http://londres.itamaraty.gov.br/en-us/book_club.xml

14-16 Cockspur Street London SW11Y 5BL

@BrazilEmbassyUK

14-16 Cockspur Street London SW11Y 5BL

@BrazilEmbassyUK