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Ana Maria Machado
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From: Julie Kline <cla>
Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2000 16:40:35 -0500
I appreciate the opportunity to share my enthusiasm for Brazilian writer Ana Maria Machado with the CCBC-Net community. By winning the 2000 Hans Christian Andersen Award for writing, I?m hopeful that more individuals, particularly within the U.S., will get to know her books. To my knowledge, only two of her stories have been translated and published in the U.S. (in English) to date:
?The Song of the Plaza? in On the Wings of Peace (Clarion, 1995) and Ni?a Bonita (Kane/Miller, 1996). (A chapter in Spanish from her book, Bisa Bia Bisa Bel, was published in the U.S. in a MacMillan/McGraw Hill textbook, Cuentamundos.) Because I am assuming that many individuals on CCBC-Net will not yet have had the chance to know Machado?s work, I?ll begin with some bio information in this message. During the rest of the week, I?ll share portions of a recent email interview with her.
Machado has been one of the most well-regarded authors for children in Brazil for some 30 years, having published 96 children?s titles. (She also writes for adults.) Born in Rio de Janeiro, she began her professional life as a painter and later as a journalist, working for Elle magazine (Paris), the BBC (London), and as News Editor for Radio Jornal do Brasil for seven years. She began writing in 1969; in 1979, she opened the first children?s bookstore in all of Brazil? Malasartes.
Machado, like many in her generation of children?s writers, continued the legacy of Jos? Bento Monteiro Lobato (188248), considered the first real writer of Brazilian children?s literature. Like Lobato, these writers play with language, and with fantasy and humor. For example, in Hist?ria meio ao contrario (1978), Machado turns the structure of fairy tales upside down, beginning her story with ?and they lived happily ever after? and ending with
?once upon a time.
De olho nas penas (1981) which received the Casa de las Am?ricas prize, epitomizes the search for Brazilian identity in children?s literature. In the story, a boy born in exile in Chile (then moved from country to country after the coup), has a fantastic adventure in which he encounters the African, indigenous and European roots of his country of birth, all in a search to discover where he is from and where he belongs.
I?m curious?has anyone out there had the opportunity to read any of Machado?s books? If so, what were your impressions? What language did you read them in? Others among you may have had the opportunity to hear her speak?at the ?Reading Latin America? or ?World thru Words? conferences (Milwaukee, 1991 and 1995), in association with the Madison Children?s Museum Brazil exhibit (1995), or perhaps at an IBBY Congress. What can you share from that experience?
-Julie K. Kline Outreach and Academic Program Coordinator Center for Latin America University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee PO Box 413 Milwaukee, WI 53201
(414) 229Y86 phone
(414) 229(79 fax cla at uwm.edu www.uwm.edu/Dept/CLA
Received on Tue 27 Jun 2000 04:40:35 PM CDT
Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2000 16:40:35 -0500
I appreciate the opportunity to share my enthusiasm for Brazilian writer Ana Maria Machado with the CCBC-Net community. By winning the 2000 Hans Christian Andersen Award for writing, I?m hopeful that more individuals, particularly within the U.S., will get to know her books. To my knowledge, only two of her stories have been translated and published in the U.S. (in English) to date:
?The Song of the Plaza? in On the Wings of Peace (Clarion, 1995) and Ni?a Bonita (Kane/Miller, 1996). (A chapter in Spanish from her book, Bisa Bia Bisa Bel, was published in the U.S. in a MacMillan/McGraw Hill textbook, Cuentamundos.) Because I am assuming that many individuals on CCBC-Net will not yet have had the chance to know Machado?s work, I?ll begin with some bio information in this message. During the rest of the week, I?ll share portions of a recent email interview with her.
Machado has been one of the most well-regarded authors for children in Brazil for some 30 years, having published 96 children?s titles. (She also writes for adults.) Born in Rio de Janeiro, she began her professional life as a painter and later as a journalist, working for Elle magazine (Paris), the BBC (London), and as News Editor for Radio Jornal do Brasil for seven years. She began writing in 1969; in 1979, she opened the first children?s bookstore in all of Brazil? Malasartes.
Machado, like many in her generation of children?s writers, continued the legacy of Jos? Bento Monteiro Lobato (188248), considered the first real writer of Brazilian children?s literature. Like Lobato, these writers play with language, and with fantasy and humor. For example, in Hist?ria meio ao contrario (1978), Machado turns the structure of fairy tales upside down, beginning her story with ?and they lived happily ever after? and ending with
?once upon a time.
De olho nas penas (1981) which received the Casa de las Am?ricas prize, epitomizes the search for Brazilian identity in children?s literature. In the story, a boy born in exile in Chile (then moved from country to country after the coup), has a fantastic adventure in which he encounters the African, indigenous and European roots of his country of birth, all in a search to discover where he is from and where he belongs.
I?m curious?has anyone out there had the opportunity to read any of Machado?s books? If so, what were your impressions? What language did you read them in? Others among you may have had the opportunity to hear her speak?at the ?Reading Latin America? or ?World thru Words? conferences (Milwaukee, 1991 and 1995), in association with the Madison Children?s Museum Brazil exhibit (1995), or perhaps at an IBBY Congress. What can you share from that experience?
-Julie K. Kline Outreach and Academic Program Coordinator Center for Latin America University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee PO Box 413 Milwaukee, WI 53201
(414) 229Y86 phone
(414) 229(79 fax cla at uwm.edu www.uwm.edu/Dept/CLA
Received on Tue 27 Jun 2000 04:40:35 PM CDT
