Machado de Assis, the Enigmatic Genius
November 23, 2008 De Balie Amsterdam
“If Borges is the writer who made Garcia Marquez possible, then it is no exaggeration to say that Machado de Assis is the writer who made Borges possible.”
(Salman Rushdie)
Machado de Assis, the great Brazilian writer, in fact, the first great novelist of the Americas was a poor mulatto from Rio de Janeiro, who received little formal education. The son of a washerwoman and a house painter, Machado was a shy epileptic man who translated Shakespeare into Portuguese, became president of the Brazilian Academy of Letters and received a state funeral when he died in 1908.
Currently, in Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, New York, Madrid, Paris, London, Lisbon and other big cities around the world, a number of events about the writer are taking place to celebrate 100 years of his death. Machado de Assis is considered by Harold Blom, the renowned literary critic from the US, one of the greatest writers of the western literature; José Saramago, Salman Rushdie, Woody Allen, and the late Susan Sontag, are some of his fans.
In Holland he was introduced and translated by August Willemsen. Later, one of his books was translated by Harrie Lemmens. Yet, here he is less celebrated than other Latin American writers.
In fact, when the Latin American literary boom flourished across the world, the readers never went back in time further than three or four decades. Maybe the question has also to do with the enigmatic aspects and the erudite playfulness of Machado’s fiction which makes him difficult to classify. Is he romantic, realist, idealistic, cynical, rational? Is he mocking the reader, the writer, the text? Or is it the fact that Brazil, being a huge country, where people speak Portuguese - and not Spanish -is not usually regarded by outsiders as part of Latin America?
In the 100th year of his death A Hora do Brasil wishes to reintroduce Machado de Assis in Holland, and celebrate his life and oeuvre.
Program
15:00 – Why Machado de Assis? – introduction;
15:05 – The importance of Machado de Assis' oeuvre - HARRIE LEMMENS (prize winner of Fonds voor de Letteren 2006, translator of "Ezau en Jacob" by Machado de Assis, "Viva o Povo Brasileiro" (Brazilië, Brazilië) by João Ubaldo Ribeiro and other Brazilian and Portuguese writers);
15:20 – Hands off, SIR! - RUUD PLOEGMAAKERS (lecturer at the Department of Brazilian studies of Leiden University; translator of "Cidade de Deus" (City of God), by Paulo Lins, and "Buffo e Spallanzani", by Rubens Fonseca).
15:35 – Capitu - the most important female of the Brazilian literature - MARILENE NAGLE VAN DER MEER (lecturer at the Department of Brazilian Studies of Leiden University);
16:10 – Memórias Póstumas - a film by André Klotzel, based on one of Machado's most famous novels
|
