/ARTS WEEKLY/ LITERATURE-BRAZIL: An Angolan Revolution in Rio de Janeiro

By Mario Osava Reprint | | Print |

Mario Osava

RIO DE JANEIRO, Nov 5 2002 (IPS) - A revolution of the Afro-Brazilians in the "favelas" (slums) of Rio de Janeiro, led by drug traffickers carrying Angolan weapons is the undercurrent of a new novel by José Eduardo Agualusa, a transnational writer of the Portuguese-speaking community.

"O ano em que Zumbi tomou o Rio" (The Year Zumbi Took Rio), recently published in Brazil, combines a great deal of imagination with real events, both from the history of Angola and the violence that permeates Rio de Janeiro.

Jararaca (named for a poisonous snake measuring 1.5 metres) is the head of the illicit drugs trade in Morro do Barriga, a Rio favela, and describes himself as "a bandit with social concerns" who sells drugs "to destroy the social system" imposed by whites.

The novel portrays how Jararaca’s ideas on improving society lead him to politicise drug trafficking. He comes to dominate the favelas that give him strategic control over Rio de Janeiro because they are located on the hillsides, allowing his "army" to easily block the city’s main roads.

Then one day he decides to occupy the entire city.

A key element in Jararaca’s insurrection is the weapons smuggled from Angola by the character known as Francisco Palmares, a former army colonel and intelligence agent from the African country.

The rebellion is crushed by the Brazilian armed forces, but achieves some of its objectives, such as the removal of the racist Defence Minister and raising awareness about the social exclusion of African descendants and the need for greater racial democracy in the country.

In addition to Palmares, several Angolans disillusioned with the route taken by their own country, support the "black" revolution in the Brazilian coastal city.

One important Angolan character is Euclides, a journalist who stands just 1.13 metres tall, who is always optimistic and happy, in spite of the discrimination he suffers as a "black, a midget and a homosexual".

Author Agualusa became one of the stars of a new generation of Angolan writers in the past decade, considered worthy of the category occupied by eminent authors Luandino Vieira and Pepetela.

Born in 1960 in the central-western Angolan city of Huambo, Agualusa is noted for his ability to transmit his condition as a citizen of the community of Portuguese-speaking countries, favoured by his stints living in Lisbon, Luanda and Rio de Janeiro.

This new novel is a hallucinatory alternation between the Brazilian city and the Angolan capital, between events past, present and future, intermixed with numerous cultural, historic and journalistic references of the two countries involved.

Only a reader who is familiar with the process Angola experienced after achieving independence in 1975 will fully understand references, for example, to the "fractionists", the nickname the government of the time gave the group that attempted a coup d’état in 1977.

Similarly, it may require having lived in Angola to realise the extent of the internal disputes within the government and the disillusion of many people involved, like those who would join forces with the descendants of the legendary rebel slave Zumbi in an assault on Rio de Janeiro.

Verses from Brazilian songs, from Angolan and Brazilian poetry appear, illustrating the feelings, thoughts and environment of the personal stories, as well as the manifestation of the rebellion.

Also included are several real recent events that reflect the high level of violence and crime in Rio de Janeiro.

Agualusa finished writing "The Year Zumbi Took Rio" in January, the result of a scholarship he received from a German institution to write the book while staying in Berlin.

The idea, says the author, is "to update the legend of Zumbi", an historic hero of Brazil’s African descendants. In the 17th century, Zumbi was the leader of an independent republic in northeast Brazil that took in slaves fleeing the sugar plantations..

The characters in the novel are imaginary, but the story is based on fact, says Agualusa, explaining that he interviewed many people and visited Rio’s favelas to gather information that he later used in the book.

He was not lacking for material. In the recent history of crime in Rio de Janeiro, drug lords have sought to justify their activities with political and social arguments.

Local authorities today recognise the "parallel power" of the drug trafficking rings, which is particularly evident when the drug lords order the closing of all businesses in certain neighbourhoods to mourn the death of one of their own.

A situation similar to what Agualusa envisioned as he wrote the novel came to life in Rio de Janeiro on Sep 30, when drug traffickers created a virtual work holiday by ordering the closure of businesses, banks and schools in some 30 neighbourhoods and paralysed a major portion of the city’s public transport system.

/ARTS WEEKLY/ LITERATURE-BRAZIL: An Angolan Revolution in Rio de Janeiro

By Mario Osava Reprint | | Print |

Mario Osava

RIO DE JANEIRO, Nov 5 2002 (IPS) - A revolution of the Afro-Brazilians in the “favelas” (slums) of Rio de Janeiro, led by drug traffickers carrying Angolan weapons is the undercurrent of a new novel by José Eduardo Agualusa, a transnational writer of the Portuguese-speaking community.
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