Itamar Vieira Junior diz que começou a elaborar 'Torto Arado' ainda na adolescência — Transcript

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1. 0:00You are a public servant at INCRA, the
2. 0:03National Institute for Colonization and
3. 0:06Agrarian Reform, and I am struck by how
4. 0:10many writers were or are public
5. 0:12servants, aren't they? But I mean, from
6. 0:16Carlos Drummond to Graciliano, Machado
7. 0:19de Assis, Guimarães Rosa, Cecília
8. 0:22Meirelles, Lygia Fagundes Telles,
9. 0:24Euclides da Cunha, it's a list...
10. 0:26writing books doesn't pay the bills. Is
11. 0:29that what it means? I haven't had time
12. 0:32to find out yet, Marcelo. Since it's
13. 0:34all very recent, everything is very
14. 0:36recent, I hope that one day it will be
15. 0:38enough to pay the bills. But that's it.
16. 0:42Machado de Assis was in the Ministry of
17. 0:46Agriculture, so many writers perhaps
18. 0:49look for a way to reconcile survival
19. 0:52with art. Let me take this opportunity
20. 0:56to do a commercial here, which is
21. 0:58absolutely necessary. I mentioned "
22. 1:01Crooked Plow," which I have here in my
23. 1:04hand, which is a well-known book that
24. 1:06beat Harry Potter in 2021, for example,
25. 1:09here in Brazil. This one here is
26. 1:12Itamar's most recent, "Doramar or the
27. 1:15Odyssey." Short stories by Itamar
28. 1:19Vieira Júnior, and there's another one
29. 1:22coming, which we are looking forward to
30. 1:25. I don't want to pressure him; we'll
31. 1:28talk about that other one soon too. But
32. 1:31how is this split of diving into a book
33. 1:33like this and having a daily life of
34. 1:36punching a time clock?
35. 1:39So that I could have the peace of mind
36. 1:41to write, I needed to have a job, right
37. 1:43? I needed to support myself, so that
38. 1:46in my free time I could dedicate myself
39. 1:49to it with the intensity and depth I
40. 1:51wanted. Working at INCRA, an agency
41. 1:55that took me to the field, took me to
42. 1:57work with people, to know this Brazil
43. 2:00in depth; it's one thing to read
44. 2:02history books, another thing is to live
45. 2:04there, as a geographer. And that is the
46. 2:08vector of "Crooked Plow," isn't it?
47. 2:12This immersion of yours in this vast
48. 2:14Brazil is what makes you revisit a text
49. 2:17you had already written when you were
50. 2:20young, right? Exactly. I started
51. 2:24writing this story. I was a teenager,
52. 2:28still very inspired and influenced by
53. 2:30Brazilian literature, by authors like
54. 2:32José Lins do Rego, Graciliano Ramos,
55. 2:34Raquel de Queiroz,
56. 2:36and also very much by family memories,
57. 2:40right? My father was raised in the
58. 2:42countryside until he was 15; he was
59. 2:43raised by his grandparents who were
60. 2:45farmers. They lived a reality very
61. 2:48similar to what is portrayed in the
62. 2:50book. But these things were just
63. 2:52memories. I didn't have contact with
64. 2:54the countryside. He didn't return there
65. 2:55anymore. A boy born in Salvador, right?
66. 2:57I was born in the city, raised on the
67. 2:59pavement,
68. 3:01meaning that wasn't my reality. And
69. 3:04then this work took me to get to know
70. 3:06this country in depth, you know? And I
71. 3:10saw there was so much potential, so
72. 3:12much strength in those characters I met
73. 3:14. I'm talking about real characters,
74. 3:18not the fictional ones in the book, but
75. 3:20the ones I found across this vast
76. 3:22Brazil,
77. 3:24that I said: "No, this here is pure art
78. 3:27, right? Pure literature, it's an epic
79. 3:29story. This deserves to be told.