About ten days ago, precisely on 27th of june, the Brazilian writer Guimarães Rosa would complete 110 years old, so this post is a tribute to him. This post is a summary of three articles and an interview. The first summary was published at https://www.britannica.com/biography/Joao-Guimaraes-Rosa. The second was published at http://thebiography.us/en/rosa-jo-o-guimar-es. The third was published at http://www.projetograndesertao.com.br/the-book/. The fourth was published at https://www.capitolinabooks.com/single-post/2017/09/06/Entrekin-and-Rosa
João Gumarães Rosa, was born in 1908 in Cordisburgo in the Minas Gerais state , and died in 1967 in Rio de Janeiro city. Novelist and short-story writer whose innovative prose style, derived from the oral tradition of the hinterland of Brazil, revitalized Brazilian fiction in the mid-20th century. His portrayal of the conflicts of the Brazilian backlanders in his native state of Minas Gerais reflects the problems of an isolated rural society in adjusting to a modern world. Guimarães Rosa studied medicine at Belo Horizonte and became a physician. His urge to travel, however, soon led him into the Brazilian foreign service, and he became a diplomat in several world capitals, attaining ambassadorial rank in 1963. With the publication of Sagarana (1946), a collection of short stories set in the sertão, Guimarães Rosa was hailed as a major force in Brazilian literature. His monumental epic novel, The Devil to Pay in the Backlands, firmly established his international reputation.
Poet, Narrator, doctor and diplomat, Guimarães Rosa was a humanist, fruitful and versatile, skilled at balancing scientific concerns, their literary interests and their public services rendered to his native country, left a brilliant legacy form that stands out for its experimental boldness, the splendid novel Grande Sertão: Veredas (1956), a dazzling exercise of linguistic creation and innovation in which deliberate removal of borders between the lyrical and narrative speeches gives to a harmonious lexical ruled by the whims of melodic of the language. At the time he studied medicine in the University of Belo Horizonte, he became known as a writer by the publication of some stories that appeared within the pages of the magazine O Cruzeiro (of Rio de Janeiro), were distinguished by the criticism with several awards. While it reached satisfaction within the scope of the lyrics, Guimarães Rosa was progressing in his diplomatic career, which led him to german soil holding the office of consul of Brazil in Hamburg in 1938. Other concerns, in fact, worried the Brazilian consul during the 1940s, in which, he provided assistance to many jews who were forced to leave Germany, fleeing nazi persecution. Despite his diplomatic passport, in 1942 he was arrested and imprisoned in the company of Brazilian artists and intellectuals who at the time were in German territory. In the mid-1950s Guimarães Rosa returned to the holders of the Brazilian cultural press thanks to the publication of a series of short stories, grouped in the set volume entitled Corpo de Baile, returned to surprise to critics and readers, the literary quality of his prose has come to achieve the levels of perfection attained by the writer with narrative, presented under the title of Grande Sertão: Veredas (1956). In just four months, the interval of time between one and another publication, he has been consacrated as one of the most outstanding voices of contemporary Brazilian literature.
Grande Sertão: Veredas (Portuguese for "Great Backlands: Paths"; English translation: The Devil to Pay in the Backlands) is a novel published in 1956 by the Brazilian writer João G. R. The book is the complex story of Riobaldo, a former jagunço (mercenary or bandit) of the poor and steppe-like inland of the Rio San Francisco, in the north of the state of Minas Gerais in the dawn of the 20th century. Now an old man and rancher, Riobaldo tells his long story to an anonymous and silent listener coming from the city. The book is written in one long section, with no chapter breaks. The English title refers to a later episode in the book involving an attempt to make a deal with the devil. The Brazilian writer Clarice Lispector in a letter to Fernando Sabino said, "I have never seen anything like it! It is the most beautiful thing of late. I do not know how far his inventive power goes, it excedes the imaginable limit. I am even dumbfounded. His language, so perfect also in intonation, is directly understood by our intimate language, and in that sense he more than invented, he discovered, or rather invented the truth. What more could one want? Now I understand your enthusiasm, Fernando. (...). The book is giving me a reconciliation with everything, explaining guesses, enhancing everything. I think the same as you: Genious." Mario Vargas Llosa, in a preface to the French translation of the novel wrote, "The true theme of Grande Sertão: Veredas is the diabolical possession, said the critic Emir Monegal in a analysis, and thus statement is perfectly valid (...).It turns out that the reality most deeply reflected in the book is neither human conduct, nor nature, nor word, but the soul. Riobaldo's odyssey carries within itself, implicity, like a secret thread that guides and justifies it, a metaphysical interrogation about good and evil. The language, the structure of the novel must then be regarded as keys whose profound meaning leads to a mystique one. Neither the work of cloak-and-dagger, nor the tower of Babel, would in this perspective be a cathedral full of symbols."
One of the most iconic and complex reads in Brazilian literature. Grandes Sertões: Veredas by
Guimarães Rosa is an undisputable classic. Perhaps for the Brazilian reader its glory lies in its rich and intricate vocabulary. Something that would challenge even the most experienced translator. But Alison Entrekin is well up for the challenge. She has taken this herculean project of translating the story of Riobaldo and Diadorim from its original Portuguese into English. Entrekin talks a bit about the process and what comes with it. Veredas is a 'metaphysical novel', according to Antonio Candido, the equivalent of Joyce's Ulysses. Previously published as The Devil to Pay in the Backlands is one of Brazil's greatest classics and deserves a place in the world literary canon. There are people who love the 1963 translation, which domesticated Guimarães's peculiar prose, for the story alone. It doesn't read badly at all, on the contrary! But it's like reading Grande Sertão: Veredas reset in the American West. I think one needs a certain maturity to get a handle on the philosophical and existencial aspects of the book.
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