2020

S1.E1 ∙ Hilda Hilst

Tue, Mar 17, 2020

Free, intense, obscenely lucid. Hilda Hilst, daughter of a man who went mad, had an obsession with the human mind and an enormous fear of ending up like her father. She was, however, the personification of vibrancy and impulse. She lived her youth intensely, broke taboos in the way she loved men, circulated in the upper social and cultural circles of her time and, suddenly, in a moment of hyper lucidity, gave up everything to live off of her writing. She isolated herself in Casa do Sol for 30 years, wrote numerous books, countless poetry, received friends and expanded her intensity to another dimension, in which she tried to contact the dead. She left us books like Presságio (Omen), Kadosh, Fluxo Floema and A Obscena Senhora D (The Obscene Madame D).

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S1.E2 ∙ Conceição Evaristo

Tue, Mar 17, 2020

Conceição had to always write in her spare time, in the time between work and taking care of her home and her special-needs daughter. Born into a family of women who laundered clothing, she grew up in the favela called Pindura Saia in Belo Horizonte. She was the only black girl in her traditional public school and having access to books, she fell in love with them at an early age. She graduated, earned a PhD, wrote books and marked her place in the world of literature, breaking barriers and stigmas. Her books give first and last names to black women and their stories, such as in Insubmissas Lágrimas de Mulheres (Unsubmissive Tears of Women), Ponciá Vicêncio and Olhos D'Água (Eyes of Water). In Becos da Memória (Memory Alleys), she relives her past and gives wings to her "life of writing", as she commonly called her art.

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S1.E3 ∙ Raquel de Queiroz

Tue, Mar 17, 2020

Daughter of Ceará's intellectual elite, she grew up as an only child surrounded by books and stories. She experienced the terrible droughts of the northeastern hinterlands up close, which inspired her first book, O Quinze (The Fifteen), written at the age of 15 under the light of a lantern. A columnist for decades at important Brazilian newspapers and a translator of classic novels, she didn't consider herself a writer, but rather a political animal. It is from her proximity to this world of politics that the book João Miguel emerges. She was the first woman be a part of the Brazilian Academy of Letters. She was an enthusiast of the feminist movement, as reflected in Memorial de Maria Moura, Dôra, Doralina and As Três Marias (The Three Marias). She did hands-on work on her farm, where she enjoyed her three favorite things: a porch, a hammock and a small lake.

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S1.E4 ∙ Adélia Prado

Tue, Mar 17, 2020

A catholic, mother of four from Minas Gerais, Adélia is a poet of the simple things in life. A graduate in Philosophy and a university professor, she never wanted to leave Divinópolis, her hometown, where should could hear the train whistle and write under divine inspiration. In this way books like Bagagem (Baggage), O Pelicano (The Pelican) and A Faca no Peito (Knife to the Chest) were born. She finally released her only work of fiction, O Homem da Mão Seca (The Man with the Dry Hand), after a long period of literary stagnation, during which she fought against depression and had to rescue her power to be enchanted by the beautiful things of life and the themes that always stimulated her: God, death and sex.

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S1.E5 ∙ Cora Coralina

Tue, Mar 17, 2020

In 1889, Anna Bretas was born in the heart of Brazil. A frail and sick girl, she was the daughter of extremely strict parents and would search for the refuge she needed to survive in the backyard of the home where they lived. It was also in the arms of an ex-slave turned nanny that she received the affection that she lacked from her parents. Anna adopted the name Cora Coralina when she began to write, but repressed by her family, she was only able to carry out her literature once she was old. Cora became a full-fledged confectioner, got married and had children. She moved to São Paulo, lived in the big city for decades, and when life permitted, she returned to Goiás to once again live in the Old House on the Bridge where she was born and finally began to write. She left her memories and thoughts in books such as Histórias da Casa Velha da Ponte (Stories of the Old House on the Bridge) and Meu Livro de Cordel.

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S1.E6 ∙ Nélida Piñon

Tue, Mar 17, 2020

Passionate about traveling, she considers herself an eternal wanderer. Of Galician descent, but born in Rio de Janeiro, she was taken to Galicia as a child. She fell in love with the land, the people and the adventures of a new language, new values and new flavors. Nélida is an adventurous romantic, obsessed with history and great heroic deeds. Her prose, such as A República dos Sonhos (The Republic of Dreams) and Coração Andarilho (Wandering Heart) reflects all of this. She became the first woman to preside over the Brazilian Academy of Letters and continues to write around the world.

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S1.E7 ∙ Lygia Fagundes Telles

Tue, Mar 17, 2020

Ants, a dwarf, an antique shop, a doorman, a ballerina. Characters in situations that border on the fantastic permeate the tales of Lygia, an attorney who graduated from the Largo São Francisco Law School, whose imagination worked endlessly. A Caçada (The Hunt), A Estrutura da Bolha de Sabão (The Structure of the Soap Bubble) and A Chave na Porta are examples of the power of a thought-provoking prose, that often flirted with mystery and the ethereal. Quite politicized, in As Meninas (The Girl in the Photograph) she writes about her traumatic experience of living in the midst of a military dictatorship, against which she fought alongside friends who were murdered, which left her deeply scarred.

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S1.E8 ∙ Clarice Lispector

Tue, Mar 17, 2020

Shy, mysterious and sullen, Clarice always felt out of place. This characteristic marked her life in literature. She used to say that she identified with the wild, free and instinctive animals. The daughter of Ukrainian immigrants, she arrived to Brazil while just a baby and grew up in Recife, which deeply impacted her. She married an ambassador and moved many times throughout her life. She had insomnia, anxiety and felt everything very intensely. The world poured out from her and was reflected in books such as Perto do Coração Selvagem (Near to the Wild Heart), Laços de Família (Family Ties), Uma Aprendizagem ou o Livro dos Prazeres (An Apprenticeship or the Book of Delights). She loved being a mother, gave only one on-camera interview and kept correspondences by letter with her best friends around the world, in a deep exchange with those she loved.

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