Guest of the ilb 2002
Júlio Emílio Braz
was born in 1959 in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais. At the age of
five, he moved with his parents to Rio de Janeiro where he grew up in
favelas. From a very early age, reading and writing played a
central role in his life. Always eager to learn, he taught himself to
read before going to school with the help of comics and started to
write at the age of seven. At twenty, Braz made his passion into his profession
and entered the literary market with comic strips he’d written. Braz is
relaxed towards the supposed gap between popular genres and the
intellectual demands of »proper«
literature. The author, who is today highly regarded in his home
country and whose books are used in school lessons in Brazil, made a
living with horror comics which also came out in Europe and with more
than 400 western novels which he wrote under 39 pseudonyms for
different pocket book series'. Braz has written more than 75
children’s and young people’s books and TV series from his scripts have
appeared on Brazilian and Paraguayan television.
For his first young people’s book, »Saguairu« which came out in 1988,
he received in the following year one of the most significant prizes
for up-and-coming authors in Brazil, the »Premio Jabuti« of the
Brazilian Book Guild. Júlio Emílio Braz became well-known in Europe
with the translation of his novel »Crianças na Escuridão« (1991) which
in 1997 was awarded, amongst others, the »Austrian Children’s and Young
People’s Book Prize«, and the prize Die Blaue Brillenschlange. In
addition he received the Sonderpreis
der Ausländerbeauftragten des Senats Berlin in 1997. For his book
“Lendas Negras” (2001) he received the award Altamente Reccommendável
des Fundação Nacional do Livro Infantil e Juvenil in 2002. This award
was likewise given to him in 2006 for the book “Sikulme e outros contos
africanos” (2005).
Braz’s literary commitment is for the street children of the big
Brazilian cities. In his young people’s novel, »Crianças na Escuridão«,
he portrays the fate of the six-year-old Rolinha, whose mother leaves
her and who joins a girl gang which has its own laws and strict
hierarchy. Docca, the ten-year-old, is the leader of the group as »she
has more experience in suffering,« says the first person narrator.
Under the protection of Docca’s gang she receives a minimum amount of protection against drug dealers and the arbitrary encroachments of the police and pimps yet without any real perspective.
Braz’s sober and down to earth language lends Rolinha’s story »an
almost pitiless urgency« and »gives space to those layers of the
narrative which touch on universal human fears: the fear to be left,
the fear of it being your fault.« (»Neue Zürcher Zeitung«). With this,
Júlio Emílio Braz also presents
generally valid identification points for his young readers in Europe.
Rolinha’s story doesn’t just come across as a distant story limited to
the Brazilian favelas. It is Braz’s desire, with this »protocol
of the street«, to give the street children of Brazil a voice and to
create a conscience for the existence of socially tolerated crimes.
»Even if only one young person is outraged, on reading, about so much
suffering and despair, then my work on this book has been worth it.«
Most recently the author published “A voz de quem te ama” (2006). Braz lives in Rio de Janeiro.
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