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Ana Maria Machado Interview
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From: Julie Kline <cla>
Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2000 16:41:03 -0500
Following are additional excerpts from a recent email interview I comducted with Brazilian author Ana Maria Machado for CCBC-Net:
Q: What do you try to convey? What motivates you to write for children?
A: I don't try to convey anything in particular. Maybe I just try to share a way of looking at the world and at life in general. A personal view that is full of dreams of a better place and better times, with more justice and freedom.
My motivation for writing is my love for the language and for stories in general. I have always loved to read and listen to stories, so I just want to go on doing it and making it possible for other people to find more stories - the ones I write. I write for adults and for children with the same motivation - language. In writing for children, there is a fascinating challenge : working with a language that is very close to the spoken language of current everyday situations and, at the same time, making it blossom into something out of the ordinary, through a poetic or humorous way of using it.
Q: How widely has your work been translated? What languages/what countries?
A: Books of mine have been translated into Spanish (nearly 30 titles) in Spain, Venezuela, Colombia, Argentina, Mexico. Also in German (Germany and Switzerland), French (France and Switzerland), Swedish (Sweden), Norwich
(Norway), Danish (Denmark),Japanese (Japan), Basque (Spain), Dutch (the Netherlands), English (USA and England) and even in Portugal, because it is not easy for Portuguese children to read books written in Brazilian Portuguese, and publishers often prefer to have them rewritten locally.
Q: Do you think your work is universal or more specifically written with Brazilian children in mind?
A: I am not aware of having any particular children in mind when I write, but as I am Brazilian, it may well happen that my experience and my culture show in what I write. In some of the books, I am conscious that this can be a strong aspect. But, as a reader, I have always read and enjoyed books which had a rather strong regional or national background, and that fact didn't stop them from being universal at the same time.
Also, I have been reading and discussing my books with children in different countries - from Sweden to Angola, from the U.S. to Germany and they never seemed to find any difficulty with the stories due to the fact that I am Brazilian. But , as sometimes this kind of question is asked by adults in the States, I think it may well be that it is an issue American adults are concerned about.
-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 Thu 29 Jun 2000 04:41:03 PM CDT
Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2000 16:41:03 -0500
Following are additional excerpts from a recent email interview I comducted with Brazilian author Ana Maria Machado for CCBC-Net:
Q: What do you try to convey? What motivates you to write for children?
A: I don't try to convey anything in particular. Maybe I just try to share a way of looking at the world and at life in general. A personal view that is full of dreams of a better place and better times, with more justice and freedom.
My motivation for writing is my love for the language and for stories in general. I have always loved to read and listen to stories, so I just want to go on doing it and making it possible for other people to find more stories - the ones I write. I write for adults and for children with the same motivation - language. In writing for children, there is a fascinating challenge : working with a language that is very close to the spoken language of current everyday situations and, at the same time, making it blossom into something out of the ordinary, through a poetic or humorous way of using it.
Q: How widely has your work been translated? What languages/what countries?
A: Books of mine have been translated into Spanish (nearly 30 titles) in Spain, Venezuela, Colombia, Argentina, Mexico. Also in German (Germany and Switzerland), French (France and Switzerland), Swedish (Sweden), Norwich
(Norway), Danish (Denmark),Japanese (Japan), Basque (Spain), Dutch (the Netherlands), English (USA and England) and even in Portugal, because it is not easy for Portuguese children to read books written in Brazilian Portuguese, and publishers often prefer to have them rewritten locally.
Q: Do you think your work is universal or more specifically written with Brazilian children in mind?
A: I am not aware of having any particular children in mind when I write, but as I am Brazilian, it may well happen that my experience and my culture show in what I write. In some of the books, I am conscious that this can be a strong aspect. But, as a reader, I have always read and enjoyed books which had a rather strong regional or national background, and that fact didn't stop them from being universal at the same time.
Also, I have been reading and discussing my books with children in different countries - from Sweden to Angola, from the U.S. to Germany and they never seemed to find any difficulty with the stories due to the fact that I am Brazilian. But , as sometimes this kind of question is asked by adults in the States, I think it may well be that it is an issue American adults are concerned about.
-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 Thu 29 Jun 2000 04:41:03 PM CDT
