Posts featuring Conceição Evaristo

In Conversation: Ketty Valêncio, Founder of Livraria Africanidades

Teaching someone that she can be anything she wants to be is revolutionary, and that’s why what I do is activism.

Selling books can be a form of political activism. That’s according to Ketty Valêncio, who founded the initiative Livraria Africanidades, a unique bookstore in São Paulo that only sells books that focus on and valorize black women.

Africanidades Bookstore began online in 2014 and opened its physical location in December 2017. The walls of its new home have murals created by black women artists and its bookshelves are lined with fiction, poetry, feminist theory, nonfiction, and even cookbooks, the vast majority of which are written by black authors from Brazil’s peripheries. The space carries the fruitful results and future promise of selling books by authors who reside on the margins of the Brazilian publishing scene—or who are excluded entirely from the traditional literary market.

Here, Ketty Valêncio tells Asymptote Editor-at-Large in Brazil, Lara Norgaard, some of the challenges for women of color in Brazilian publishing and the power of increasing visibility for writers of color, both in Portuguese and in translation. 

Lara Norgaard (LN): How did you come up with the idea for the Africanidades Bookstore?

Ketty Valêncio (KV): The bookstore came about because of my struggle to understand myself as a black woman. I never felt that I fit in anywhere. And then I came across Afro-Brazilian literature, texts that have black characters as protagonists. I understood my blackness through literature, through these books written by black authors and also by a few white authors who place value on black characters. I came across these narratives and thought, wow, there are people writing about me, about who came before me, about my ancestors and my memories.

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Weekly Dispatches from the Frontlines of World Literature

Our weekly roundup of literary news brings us to Brazil, Indonesia, and the United States.

We are back with the latest literary news from around the world! This week we hear about various happenings in Brazil, Indonesia, and the United States. 

Lara Norgaard, Editor-at-large, reporting from Brazil:

Brazil made international headlines when black feminist city councilperson Marielle Franco was assassinated in Rio de Janeiro on March 14. Renowned authors from around the world, including Chimamanda Adichie, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Angela Davis, and Arundhati Roy, signed a petition demanding an investigation into the death of the activist and civic leader. One of Brazil’s most prominent black women writers, Conceição Evaristo, recited a poem in Marielle Franco’s honor during the days of protest and mourning that followed the murder.

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Weekly Dispatches from the Frontlines of World Literature

Your latest updates from Brazil, Iran, and the UK

This week, Brazilian Editor-at-Large Maíra Mendes Galvão reports from Brazil’s vibrant literary scene. Poupeh Missaghi writes about how Iranians celebrated a revered literary figure’s birthday and gives us a peep into the preparations for the Tehran International Book Fair. And M. René Bradshaw has much to report from London’s literati! Hope you’re ready for an adventure! 

Maíra Mendes Galvão, our Editor-at-Large for Brazil, brings us the latest from literary events:

The capital of the Brazilian state of Ceará, Fortaleza, hosted the 12th Biennial Book Fair last weekend. The very extensive and diverse program included the presence of Conceição Evaristo, Ricardo Aleixo, Marina Colasanti, Joca Reiners Terron, Eliane Brum, Luiz Ruffato, Natércia Pontes, Daniel Munduruku, Frei Betto and many others. The event also paid homage to popular culture exponents such as troubadour Geraldo Amâncio, musician Bule Bule, and poet Leandro Gomes de Barros. One of the staples of Ceará is “literatura de cordel“, a literary genre (or form) that gets its name from the way the works (printed as small chapbooks) have traditionally been displayed for sale: hanging from a sort of clothesline (cordel). It was popularized by a slew of artists, including a collective of women cordel writers, Rede Mnemosine de Cordelistas, who marked their presence in a field originally dominated by men.

The northeast of Brazil is bubbling with literary activities: this week, from April 26-28, the city of Ilhéus, in the state of Bahia, hosts its own literary festival, FLIOS. There will be talks and debate about local literature and education as well as a book fair, workshops, book launches, performances, and readings.

The other upcoming literary festival is Flipoços, hosted by the city of Poços de Caldas in the south eastern state of Minas Gerais. Milton Hatoum, celebrated writer from the state of Amazonas, will be the patron of this edition of the festival, which will also pay homage to the literature of Mozambique. Guests include Rafael Gallo, Roberta Estrela D’Alva, Tati Bernardi, Ungulani Ba Ka Khosa, and others.

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