Luciano Duarte

We sometimes see in a man who is experienced in literature the unusual ability to distance himself from himself in order to analyze himself, in other words, to see himself in third person, imagining himself as a character in a novel, not idealizing his own life, but seeing himself as someone who decides and reaps the rewards of his own decisions. If he wants to idealize his own life too, then he will be able to measure how close or far he is from what he intends to be. In both cases, above all, he gets to know himself on a level that, without in-depth knowledge of the dynamics of biographies, is very difficult to achieve.

A multitude of examples show that if the author is sincere and true to his experience, true to his artistic motivation, the work he creates never fits into any model. It comes out, of course, with traces that more or less show his influences, but it also comes loaded with an ambiguity, a uniqueness that is quite special. Even if he fails to express himself, even if he lacks the verve to realize what he has planned, the work will always have that sincerity at its heart without which lasting art cannot be made. And that is the most important.

Lima Barreto is one of the most commented Brazilian authors. And practically everything that is said about his work is false, or at least we have a radically different view of it when we simply read it, without the intermediaries. To say so would seem idle, were there not so many authors who survive on a fabricated image. With regard to Lima Barreto’s work, the alleged virtues are all designed to fit it into a simulated worldview; the defects serve no purpose other than to hide what is significant in it. Even his biography is falsified, which leaves no doubt as to the authenticity of his literary motivation, despite what else can be said. In the end, what needs to be done is to analyze what is sincere in his work; and when we do that, the conclusion is only one: Lima Barreto honors his profession as a writer.