Esmeralda Ribeiro

thumb|A person who reads is many kilometers ahead of other people Esmeralda Ribeiro (born 1958 in São Paulo) is a journalist and Portuguese-language writer. Quotes One night, while working at the Humanitarian Center, I went to answer a call. When the phone lines got crossed, I heard the strangest conversation, full of intimate details and emotions, and my life was forever changed. beginning of the story "In Search of a Black Butterfly," English translation in Fourteen Female Voices from Brazil by Elzbieta Szoka (2002) There are black female writers who came before me, and it's important for me to know that I'm contributing something, too, that I'm not just following their footsteps... I want to pass on my way of seeing the world and the outlook of the black community in Brazil through my works, without following the same patterns. interview in Fourteen female voices from Brazil by Elzbieta Szoka (2002) ...the traveling that we do through reading...perhaps these are the most rewarding trips that a person can take, because they help us to think and to situate our ideas more effectively. A person who reads is many kilometers ahead of other people. A person who reads has a different stance in life. Especially for those of us who are black writers we need to know our history. Someone who doesn't know his or her own origin is ignorant; someone who doesn't know his or her origin will be deceived by false experts, because sometimes lies are told, and a person can end up believing them. For us, literature enables us to go on maturing as creators. Through our creation, we can include factual elements in our work that refer to mythology, to our origins and to our knowledge. Fourteen female voices from Brazil by Elzbieta Szoka (2002) (Q: Do politics occupy an important role in your life?) ER: Yes, living is a political act. Becoming involved in efforts that guide people toward thinking is a political act. Having an awareness that I'm a person of African descent is a political stance. The decision to have a companion and for a child to be born from my own body is a political act...For those who most closely resemble Hitler or the Brazilian Ku Klux Klan, power is a potent and lethal weapon that will strike us one way or the other. They want to see us burning or driven through the streets as beggars. From the runway at a show to the gutters of filthy city streets. In my daily life, I try to exercise my right to have a voice and, especially, to have my body respected. Through my literary creation, I'm offering indirect criticism of race relations in Brazil and of relations between men and women. Feminism in Brazil is a struggle where white women go out to fight for their rights while black women stay in the kitchen as household servants. Are we together in this process of demanding our rights, or aren't we? Fourteen female voices from Brazil by Elzbieta Szoka (2002) External links Instagram page GoodReads page Category:1959 births Category:Living people Category:Journalists from Brazil Category:Poets from Brazil Category:Short story writers from Brazil Category:Novelists from Brazil Category:People from São Paulo Category:Women authors from Brazil Category:Women born in the 1950s