Ubaldo: "I have no enthusiasm for FHC"

By Eder Fonseca, from the portal Market Overview

Born in Bahia at his maternal grandfather's house, when he was two months old, João Ubaldo Osório Pimentel Ribeiro moved with his family to Aracaju, Sergipe, where he spent part of his childhood. His father, Manuel Ribeiro, a renowned lawyer in the capital of Bahia, went on to found and direct the law program at the Catholic University of Salvador. His mother, Maria Filipa Osório Pimentel, gave birth to two more children: Sônia Maria and Manuel. In 1957 he debuted in journalism, working as a reporter for Jornal da Bahia, later being transferred to Tribuna da Bahia, where he would eventually hold the position of editor-in-chief. He edited cultural magazines and newspapers together with Glauber Rocha and participated in the student movement (1958). Although he never practiced law, he was an exemplary student. At the same university, after completing his law degree, he pursued postgraduate studies in Public Administration. Currently, João contributes to publications such as O Globo, Frankfurter Rundschau (Germany), Jornal da Bahia, Die Zeit (Germany), The Times Literary Supplement (England), O Jornal (Portugal), Jornal de Letras (Portugal), O Estado de São Paulo, A Tarde, and many others, both international and national. In 1959, he participated in the anthology Panorama do Conto Baiano, with the short story Lugar e Circunstância; the anthology was published by the Official Press of Bahia. During that period he worked at the Salvador City Hall as an office boy in the Mayor's Office and soon after as a writer for the Tourism Department. In 1961, she participated in the short story collection Reunião, published by the Federal University of Bahia, with the stories Josefina, Decalião, and O Campeão. In 1963 he wrote his first novel, September Makes No Sense, with a preface by his colleague Glauber Rocha and the support of Jorge Amado. The original title was going to be A Semana da Pátria (The Week of the Fatherland), but at the suggestion of the publisher, João changed the title. In 1971, Editora Civilização Brasileira published the novel Sargento Getúlio, an achievement that earned João the 1972 Jabuti Prize awarded by the Brazilian Book Chamber in the "Author Revelation" category. According to critics of the time, the book contains the best of Graciliano Ramos and the best of Guimarães Rosa. In 1974, he published the book of short stories Vencecavalo e o outro povo, whose initial title was A guerra dos Pananaguás, by Editora Artenova. With translations done by the author himself, several of his novels became famous abroad, among them Sergeant Getúlio, which, released in the United States in 1978, was well-received by critics in that country. In 1981 he moved to Lisbon, Portugal and, upon returning to Brazil, published Política – a book still used in universities and republished as Já Podeis da Pátria Filhos – and also began contributing to the newspaper O Globo. His journalistic output from that period was compiled in 1988 in the book Always on Sundays. In 1982, he began writing the novel Viva o Povo Brasileiro (originally titled Alto lá, meu general). That year he participated in the International Writers' Festival in Toronto, Canada. Viva o povo Brasileiro was finally published in 1984, and received the Jabuti Prize in the "Novel" category and the Golden Dolphin award from the Government of Rio de Janeiro. He began translating the book into English, a task that consumed two years of work, during which he preferred to use a computer. Alongside writers Jorge Luis Borges and Gabriel Garcia Marquez, he participated in a series of nine films produced by Canadian state television about literature in Latin America. In 1983, he made his debut in children's and young adult literature with the book Life and Passion of Pandonar, the Cruel. In 1989 he published the novel The Lizard's Smile. His second foray into children's and young adult literature came in 1990 with the book The Revenge of Charles Tiburone. This year João participates in the aforementioned Frankfurter Rundschau and, returning to his country of origin in 1991, stays in Rio de Janeiro. In 1994 he published the book of chronicles A Brazilian in Berlin, about his stay in the city. In 1997, he published the novel The Spell of Peacock Island, by Editora Nova Fronteira. In the same year, before the publication of this novel, João is hospitalized with severe headaches due to a fall. In 1999, he was chosen as one of the writers in the world to give an interview to the French newspaper "Libération" about the approaching millennium. João holds the Poetik Dozentur (Professor of Poetry) chair at the University of Tübingen, Germany, and is also honored on Avenida Marquês de Sapucaí. His book, Viva o povo brasileiro (Long Live the Brazilian People), was chosen as the samba theme song for the Império da Tijuca samba school for the 1987 carnival. In 1993, he was elected to chair number 34 of the Brazilian Academy of Letters. João Ubaldo Ribeiro's literary style is basically defined by irony and the social context of Brazil, also encompassing Portuguese and African culture. Antônio Olinto, writer, literary critic, diplomat, and also a member of the Brazilian Academy of Letters, says that Ubaldo often constructs his narrative by starting the story in the middle, as if it had already existed before. "But how can we talk about this country without a touch of humor?" "In everything, João Ubaldo incorporates the vision of a humorist, who sees what doesn't appear, identifies the nakedness of people, understands hidden thoughts," says Olinto, in the same article. According to him, in Ubaldo Ribeiro's work, humor reaches its peak in Vencecavalo e o Outro Povo. Read the interview with one of the country's greatest writers, now exclusively on Panorama Mercantil.

Panorama Mercantil - In 1999, you said, "I write for money." Did literature make you rich?

John Ubaldo Ribeiro - It left me in a situation, let's say, similar to that of a retired Banco do Brasil employee, not in the highest positions, but maybe as a manager, or something like that. I think, although my INSS (Brazilian Social Security Institute) retirement pension – more due to my own imprudence than anything else – seems to be R$1.200,00 or R$1.300,00, so I don't live off my pension. I managed to live a middle-class life. I even live in a wealthy neighborhood, but when I came here it wasn't like that. I managed to earn a little money from the sale of 'O Sorriso do Lagarto' (The Lizard's Smile) to television, and then I had the money to buy this apartment where I live in Leblon, which is now ridiculously valuable, and as a result of my assets, I think I'm getting close to being a Brazilian millionaire. I don't know why this apartment has appreciated so grotesquely in recent years, and I came here more than 20 or 25 years ago. I bought this apartment that belonged to Caetano with that money and ended up in this situation. Not today, today I live off my work, I live off my writing, and I earn enough to support myself, so to speak, from the newspapers I contribute to. I still depend on newspapers to write, I mean, not terribly, I wouldn't die of it, because there's always something or other to do around here for someone who lives by the pen (writing), but I haven't gotten rich at all, not at all! I have an apartment, I'm buying the house in Itaparica where I was born, but there are other heirs, and I'm buying it separately from them. So I'll keep this apartment here, which is worth much more than I spent, I mean, it was money I actually had, it was an interesting coincidence, and then, God willing, the house in Itaparica. But I don't want much more than that, everything is fine.

Panorama - You once stated that you would like to write novels. Does screenwriting somehow fascinate you?

Ribeiro - I think – especially since I'm so shameless – I'm not entirely sure about what I said exactly. I must have meant – at least that's what I think – that I'd like to know how to write soap operas, not probably to write them, because the way I am today, the way I was, and the way I've always been, I don't know how to write soap operas. Maybe I could learn over time to be at least a mediocre or average soap opera writer, but I have absolutely no talent for dramaturgy. I even feel a little embarrassed when I see on my resumes online that I'm a screenwriter. I'm not a screenwriter; I've collaborated on several screenplays, but I've never written a screenplay alone. I've collaborated with friends like Cacá Diegues, which is an honor to collaborate with because he's one of our greatest and most notable filmmakers in the whole world. Cacá is known worldwide; awarded worldwide; celebrated worldwide, so it's very good, and thank God he's my friend. So Cacá calls me and I work with him, but I'll never do it alone. I've also written scripts with Geraldinho Carneiro [a poet, lyricist, and screenwriter from Minas Gerais], who is also a great friend of mine and with whom I have great ease of communication and work, but due to these circumstances, since I don't know how to write for the theater, I don't have a knack for dramaturgy, I think, honestly I don't know. The things that have appeared in theater in Bahia and here (Rio de Janeiro) with Fernanda Torres and Domingos, are things done by others. I think a play by Domingos de Oliveira [in this case 'A Casa dos Budas Ditosos', from the book of the same name written by João Ubaldo, which has lust as its theme], which, with great mastery, transformed one of my texts into a theatrical spectacle in a very good way, since he didn't change anything I wrote, he just structured it in terms of a monologue, conceived the spectacle, and it worked perfectly. So it was mostly thanks to the talent of Domingos and Fernanda, who is also a great actress and did what everyone saw in that play, but I myself don't write it.

Panorama - You started working as a journalist at 17. Are you one of those who say that the journalism practiced back then was better than what is practiced today?

Ribeiro - I think journalism wasn't better or worse back then. It was the journalism that was available at that time, just as today's journalism is what's available today. It's clear that I – and many people my age and even a little younger – have reservations about today's journalism, but nothing prevents us from suspecting that it's something older people have always said about the present day. In other words, it's probably not nostalgia, but a view of things that is sometimes not as accurate as one might think, because sometimes the past is reconstructed in a somewhat fanciful way, forgetting certain disadvantages and so on. As I was saying, journalism in the old days was the best journalism one could have, regardless of things like censorship and so on, although I've also made some "old-fashioned" comments about journalism today. I think journalism, for example, is better written – but I reiterate, this is perhaps an old man's perspective, I'm not sure – but my tendency is to think that journalism has had more brilliant exponents than it has today, that newspapers used to write better than they do now, but I'm not sure about that. This may be a distorted statement, as I said, even I admit, due to nostalgia in perhaps the most lapse-like sense of the word.

Panorama - You have criticized the PSDB and also the current government, which is led by a member of the PT. Do you believe that an intellectual should maintain this free will and not affiliate with any party so as not to have what is called "belonging to you"?

Ribeiro - No, not exactly an intellectual, in fact, I don't think anyone is. Now, in my case, first of all, I think I'm a political skeptic, or a doubting Thomas. Today, after 70 years – I'm 72 – I have a lot to see to believe, to trust politicians here. I think today, everyone is wary. In my case, but this is my choice, it's really better not to commit to any side, since I'm not attracted to any of these amorphous parties, because they all go on television saying the same thing, vague things like: "We want social justice"; "A Brazil for everyone"; "We want better education"; but nobody says how to address the terrible situation that Brazil finds itself in in certain areas. Look at the public security situation, for example, the reforms that haven't been done, like political reform, tax reform, and other reforms that are difficult to implement. I don't want to commit myself to anyone, partly because I think that by writing about everything as I do in newspapers, I wouldn't want to raise suspicions in the reader about my subordination or collusion with certain schemes. Fortunately, no one can say that about me. I've been called a "PT sycophant," which surprised me enormously, considering what I've written not about the PT itself, but about various acts and events linked to the PT. I've been called everything from "Fernando Henrique's payroll" to other things, and so on, while maintaining the impartiality I maintain, since I'm not linked to anything. In my case, I believe I should maintain this freedom and not affiliate myself with any party. I don't want to risk, even unintentionally, defending the viewpoints of my party, and even less so, intentionally, taking a column that is given to me with other obligations and transforming it into a vehicle that is ultimately for my personal interests—it wouldn't be personal in this case, but ultimately it would end up being so. So I remain unaffiliated, as free as possible, as exempt as possible, because absolute exemption is a chimera, an illusion.

Panorama - Going back to the story of writing for money, why do you think some people are still shocked when they see an artist or intellectual speak in a commercialized way about their work?

Ribeiro - This whole business of being shocked by writing for money is a falsified, romantic, and somewhat outdated idea that we persist in maintaining. And I don't know what other cultural characteristics it stems from, because it's very common here, whereas in Anglo-Saxon countries it's not so much. Now you see, people find it strange when someone says something like I do about writing for money or wanting to make money from their artistic work, and yet, that has always been the rule. Artists who spontaneously create according to the muses, the clouds, or the angels, or whatever that may be, are an exception. You observe that since before Christ, since the Greek playwrights, art has generally been written and produced for material gain. In the case of the Greeks, for example, even in a climate of extreme gloom, gossip, and intrigue, there were many advantages, prizes, and other benefits to winning the festivals in which Sophocles, Aeschylus, Aristophanes, Euripides, and other less popular or less well-known Greek playwrights competed. Almost all Renaissance art was produced on commission. Rembrandt worked on commission; Michelangelo is said to have been self-serving and to not have finished a masterpiece without money. Let's say that if I had commissioned Michelangelo Buonarroti's 'David', and he came looking for me for a second payment, and I said, "Mr. Michelangelo, I'm not going to pay you," he would reply, "Then there's no more David"; and this was true in all of art. The other day, I was remembering watching a TV series about the Tudors [a dynasty of British monarchs who reigned in England between the end of the Wars of the Roses, 1485-1603] and Holbein [Hans Holbein (1497-1543), a German painter, one of the masters of portraiture in the Renaissance] was at the court of Henry VIII charging for his little portraits; Bach [Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750), a German composer and conductor] was a known sycophant. He composed the six universal masterpieces that are the 'Brandenburg Concertos' to curry favor with Bargrave [John Bargrave (1610-1680), author, collector, and a canon of Canterbury Cathedral in England], and they say that Bargrave never heard the six 'Brandenburg Concertos'. Mozart [Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) Austrian composer] was, in a way, employed in the imperial kitchen of the Emperor of Austria in Central Europe. Mozart most certainly received orders like this: "Mr. Wolfgang, please, a duchess friend of mine from some duchy I don't know where is arriving on Saturday, and I'd like a cheerful little concert." "None of those sad things, I don't want anything sad and I don't want anything reheated either..."; Dickens [Charles Dickens (1812-1870), English novelist] is said to have died exhausted from giving so many lectures, and he wrote the extraordinary novels he did so that he could publish them in newspaper installments and cater to a huge audience. Similarly, Balzac [Honoré de Balzac (1799-1850), French writer] did this to earn money; in the same way, Dostoevsky [Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821-1881), Russian novelist] did his work to earn money; in short, when it was about earning money, it was about earning money; not earning money was the exception. I'll end with a story I've told—I don't know if it's apocryphal, but I'll tell this story about Picasso. Picasso was being visited by a potential millionaire American buyer, but the buyer's infatuation was already getting on Picasso's nerves. It says that he stopped in front of a painting, enraptured, and said: "Master, what does this painting mean, this thing that has moved me so much, what did you mean by it?" Then Picasso replies: "200 thousand dollars". Artists are people like anyone else; it's just that their profession is considered an artistic activity. No true artist, not even myself, who perhaps pretentiously considers myself one, sells himself or prostitutes himself for money, because he won't do what he doesn't want to do, what goes against his principles, unless he's a rather perverted individual—there will be exceptions, but such a person must have some kind of problem. But normally, the person doesn't do what they wouldn't normally do, what goes against their convictions and principles; after all, commissions are the norm. Working for money is the norm for artists; anything else is prejudice from those who, in that way, would leave artistic activity only to those who have the necessary leisure and free time to dedicate themselves to it, and that doesn't work.

Panorama - Many people say that Brazil is a country that doesn't read, but its books have already sold millions of copies. Who is wrong: the statisticians or those who write other books that aren't managing to please the public?

Ribeiro - This universe is very complex, and I don't know it well enough to give a good opinion. But initially, I can say that, percentage-wise, in relative terms, Brazil has a grotesque, very small circulation of books, but in absolute terms, considering the size of our population, our market is significant, quantitatively it is. For example, I sell very well with the book 'Viva o Povo Brasileiro' and it's republished every year in the Netherlands, which is very flattering, but being a bestseller in the Netherlands would mean having very small or relatively small sales in Brazil, because in relative terms the Dutch audience is much larger than ours, but the population is much smaller, so the market here will always mean something. Now, the fact that people only buy foreign books, like those on the bestseller lists, I don't know why, but we are a country that has been overwhelmingly colonized culturally, in our language, etc. The other day I was watching TV and jokingly counting that six commercials came on one after the other, and they were all in English. Products pronounced in English must be horrifyingly confusing for a child learning to read and write in Portuguese. But we want to be American. What can you do? And then Brazil buys these international bestsellers, mass-produced in conjunction with the movies. Vampires in books, vampires in movies, I don't even follow these things closely. We write what God allows, and I don't think much about these things.

Panorama - Your historical novel 'Viva o Povo Brasileiro' has seven hundred pages, meaning it's considered a difficult book, yet it's fascinating. How do you explain this fascination?

Ribeiro - Nobody knows why a book is interesting, or why a book does so well for so long, and there are two books ['Viva o Povo Brasileiro' and 'Sargento Getúlio']. Partly because of these two, the rest of what I write is republished and reissued periodically. But my two books, 'Sargento Getúlio' and 'Viva o Povo Brasileiro', are interesting, both being quite old, over 30 years old or so, and both continue to be reissued, and not only here. Just now I received a new paperback edition of 'Sargento Getúlio' in German from another publisher. I don't know how to explain this thing about my book... I'd like to risk saying why it's good, but I'm not even sure about that. I think it's good, of course, it's my baby and I think it's good, but there must be many people who don't think so.

Panorama - Why is the internet the downfall of a writer?

Ribeiro - I know I've already written this in a column, if I'm not mistaken, or rather, I've already said it. I'm not denying authorship, because I know I've said it, I just don't remember the context in which I said it. I don't know if I meant that the internet makes things too easy; or that people check what the writer says. I honestly don't remember that. I repeat that I'm not denying authorship, on the contrary, I remember saying it, but I don't know the context. I don't know if I was saying that Google makes it too easy for people to check information that was previously difficult to obtain, I don't know if it's because the writer gets distracted by the internet and abandons the text, I don't know.

Panorama - You said you have no theoretical interest in literature. Tell us more about that.

Ribeiro - It's not that I don't have a theoretical interest in literature; I might even have one at certain points in my life, under certain circumstances. What I don't like is literary chatter, that is, talking about literature all the time. Analyzing novels, analyzing moments in the country's literary history, and so on. On certain occasions, I enjoy literary chatter as much as, for example, a chat about football or music, or neighborhood gossip in Itaparica—not the neighborhood here in Rio, but in Itaparica, yes. In short, innocent, silly gossip like who got married, or who broke up with their fiancée, things like that. Talking about literature naturally, yes, but I don't like roundtables discussing: "Look at this trend, look at that trend..." or "The problem of identity..." I know I don't like literary chatter, not literary chatter, real literary chatter, it bores me. Unless it happens naturally, or when a fellow writer is sharing confidences with me, or exchanging experiences, it's not aversion, it's just that I'm not as interested in it as one might sometimes think, given that I'm a professional writer.

Panorama - How important is a literary prize for a writer to establish themselves in the market, or are the market and prizes completely separate things?

Ribeiro - It depends. Some awards don't, some awards I think, I wouldn't know which ones, but the experience, in a somewhat nebulous way that came to mind, is that in some cases, the award draws attention to the individual's work and so on. I think it depends on the importance of the award, the publicity and so on, but the award doesn't make the book, I'm sure of that. The award helps when it's in money, especially. Award without money, ask most writers to answer honestly, most of them will surely say that awards like: trophies, straws, statuettes are very good, but a really good award is in money. Writers are only rich in Hollywood movies. Tom Clancy with those Cold War films, then it comes out in the newspaper: "Writer earns 10 million dollars" and they think that's how writers are. Most writers either teach at the University, or have another occupation, or live hand to mouth. As I've already said, I probably couldn't survive today, especially since I'm already old, if I stopped working due to lack of pay. But I work and I don't stop, because I would miss it. I'm sure it wouldn't be a catastrophic situation, but it would cut off my regular source of income.

Panorama - "You can only enter in my place, with the right to my spot in the mausoleum of immortals." This excerpt was taken from an article he wrote in 1998 titled 'Mr. President'. And now that Fernando Henrique Cardoso is about to become an immortal, how does he feel?

Ribeiro - Unlike him, I'm not going to ask you to forget what I wrote. And I did write it. I have no enthusiasm for Fernando Henrique, but I also wrote this thing against the president, let's say (let's say against), or the then-president Fernando Henrique. But what I'm going to say now is different, because I know he's a candidate, he even told me that, sending me his books as a gift, as candidates for the Academy usually do. And then, I've already been asked what I'm going to do, and I'm not going to do anything, especially at this point, knowing that he's entering with practically the unanimous approval of the other academics. I'm not going to come here now and call the press to attack his candidacy, and to make a scandal saying things like: "Only over my dead body" or "I will oppose it, this is an affront...", or anything like that, because if I did that, many would say that I wanted attention, and they would be absolutely right. Because only someone who wanted attention would stage such a circus, and it would only serve to attract attention and provide material for gossipy or overly sensationalist articles in the newspapers. It wouldn't accomplish anything; it would only draw attention to me with: "What does he want to do?" I know it won't work, and besides, I don't see Fernando Henrique's entry as a disaster for the Academy. He's not my candidate, so to speak, but I'm not his enemy, in fact, I'm not his enemy or anyone else's. I don't want to confront him, block his entry, or give a speech at the Academy against his admission; that's not done, since it's a democratic institution. I don't control it, and even if I did, my temperament wouldn't condone that kind of discrimination. If the Academy were made up of my choices, that would be a different story. Now, I'm also obliged to acknowledge that FHC undeniably has the intellectual stature to join an Academy of Letters; he does! I won't deny that either. It's just a matter of comparing Fernando Henrique's intellectual stature to the general average. He's above, or at least on par with, the best level we have; I won't deny that. I just stand by what I said about him in this article. He won't take my place because that would require me to die. I don't think I'll commit suicide if he does, and I don't want anyone to assassinate me if he does—I hope not [laughs]. Second, now that he's going to take my place, I'm not going to barricade the door to prevent him from entering and call the press to make a scene because that would be ridiculous. And he's not a personal enemy of mine, and it would be ridiculous to extend my enmity to the Academy as if I were in charge there. Anyway, I'm explaining this so that people don't say I'm unreliable or whatever, and if nobody understands, that's fine.

Panorama - You were a friend of a great journalist, the controversial Tarso de Castro, founder of 'O Pasquim'. Is there room for journalists like him in today's press, or has political correctness taken over all spaces, including the press?

Ribeiro - A journalist like Tarso would always have to have a place. I don't know if he currently has a replacement. I don't know if that replacement is starting to appear, or if there will be a replacement, that is, someone who plays the same kind of role, since the same role, I think, would be impossible. I don't know what Tarso would be like in the age of the internet, smartphones, iPads. In the beginning, he would be a technophobe, but later he would probably adapt, I don't know what it would be like. But I think that for a guy like Tarso [the emotional reasoning at this point, because he remembered him, since he lives in the apartment that belonged to the deceased journalist]. I hope so, that there is a place for a man like him, controversial and polemical as you say here, but he was an honest man. He was just a financial madman, but Tarso could have died rich, a friend of Jango, of Brizola, a real friend, not just a hanger-on. He could have enriched himself in various ways, but anyway, that's life!