 |
| Márcio Souza and
Prof. Candace Slater |
Writing the Amazon
Zelideth
M. Rivas, Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures
Everyone has heard of
the Amazon: tucans, piranhas, floresta, the list goes on.
But something that has remained largely uncelebrated is Amazonian
literature. "Writing the Amazon: A Conversation on Contemporary
Literature by Amazonian Writers," sought to teach and promote
Amazonian literature. Led by Professor Nicomedes Suárez
Araúz, writer Marcio Souza, and Professor Lúcia
de Sá, its focus was the Amazon's blurred boundaries
and marginalization.
 |
| Prof. Lúcia de Sá and
Prof. Nicomedes Suarez Araúz |
The lecture commenced
with the distribution of pieces published in the Amazonian
Literary Review. For example:
El Bosque
Todo es potencia y
ritmo, voracidad y hartazgo.
Se ve nacer,
se ve morir.
Ceniza ee jaguares
fecundan protoplasmas
de flores nunca
vistas.
Enormes boas
digieren el pájaro de oro.
La mosca negra
zumba junto a la mariposa
de cristalino vuelo.
The Forest
All is potentiality
and rhythm, voraciousness and satiety.
A birth before
our eyes, a death.
The ash of jaguar
fertilizes the protoplasm
of flowers never
seen before.
Immense boas
ingest the golden bird.
Black flies buzz
alongside the butterfly
in its crystalline
flight.
by Raúl Otero
Reiche, translated by Nicomedes Suárez Araúz
This allowed the audience
an unmediated meeting with Amazonian writing. Next, Professor
Suárez Araúz, chief editor of the Amazonian
Literary Review, offered the audience a panoramic
view of Amazonian writing. According to Professor Suárez
Araúz, Amazonian literature presents three themes:
the telluric, the ecological, and urban dehumanization. However,
he continued, Amazonian literature is mainly referred to
as literatura de la selva, literature from the jungle,
and characterized as wild, savage, and barbaric. He directed
the audience to Marcio Souza's, "The Expression of the Amazon
State," for its constant dialectic struggle. He asserted
that the European analogy, savage is to indigenous as civilized
is to European, is disproved by the Amazonian writer. If
there is no persistent peace in the world, he asked, how
can something European be civilized?
Upon concluding his lecture,
Suárez Araúz aptly introduced Marcio Souza
as the next speaker. Souza is from Manaus, a city in Amazonia,
Brazil. In 1965, he traveled to Brasilía to study
at the university but with the formation of the military
dictatorship, he transferred to Universidad de São
Paulo and remained in its Division of Social Sciences
until 1969. In his college years, Souza believed that dialogue
between Amazonia and metropolitan Brazil should occur via
the medium of cinema and began working on an adaptation of
Oswaldo Andrade's, The Jungle. Editing the finished
scenes, Souza realized that he had directed the adaptation
in a manner different from someone from the Amazon. He returned
to the Amazon to reflect on its relationship to Brazil.
According to Souza, the
Amazon is both an economic and a cultural frontier. Crossing
into the Amazon, you find yourself in a pre-European moment.
Amazonians have held to ancient cultures through the recreation
of mythology. Souza explained that outsiders have found it
difficult to enter the Amazon, but that because some have,
it is important for Amazonians to establish a cultural dialogue.
It is only recently that
indigenous people have begun writing for themselves. This
writing, Souza said, stems from paintings of mythology. Recently
people have begun to ask for permission to recreate indigenous
paintings as written stories or plays. Souza mentioned an
occasion when he wrote an adaptation of a piece of Amazonian
mythology and presented it to the tribe to which the myth
belonged. Although many tribe members enjoyed watching a
piece of their history come alive on stage, Souza related
that he was reproached by one of the tribe members who claimed
that the details were not altogether coherent. Souza suggested
to the tribe member that he help Souza correct the mistakes.
Five years later, Souza was happy to inform the audience
that the tribe member finished correcting the play and that
it is awaiting publication.
The members of the panel
reminded the audience that all Brazilian history begins with
individual chronicles. With encouragement for the writings
of indigenous peoples, Amazonian literature might find the
place it deserves in the literary canon.
