PANEL 6: Trees and Writing

With Paulina Chiziane and Itamar Vieira Junior

Host: Ligia Ferreira is a researcher and Professor of the postgraduate program in Literature at the Federal University of São Paulo

One of the most important Portuguese-language writers today, Paulina Chiziane has just been granted the Camões Prize. She says she learned how to write “under a tree”. Her best-known book, Niketche (2002), is for now her only work published in Brazil. In Paulina’s literature, generations of women assert themselves within the structures of a traditional society marked by colonialism. In this encounter, she talks with Itamar Vieira Jr., whose Torto Arado is a huge international success and won over readers of all ages. As in some accounts by the Mozambican writer, the time-lapsed story of Bibiana and Belonísia takes place amidst a slavery-heritage violence society, but always around backyards and herbs that encase secrets, memories and shared experiences.