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My undergraduate degree in Letters at the University of São Paulo, with a qualification in English and Portuguese, was the starting point. It was an intense experience that allowed me to acquire knowledge in several disciplines within the fields of Literature and Linguistics. In addition to the mandatory classes in Portuguese and English linguistics and their respective literatures, I found my place in the Department of Literary Theory and Comparative Literature. This allowed me to develop a broader perspective on contemporary literature and also to carry out an undergraduate research project on the work of Karl Ove Knausgaard and the fragmentary construction of postmodern subject identity. (I used the works translated into English, so no, I do not speak Norwegian — yet!)
One of the greatest frustrations I had at USP was the lack of exploration of writing practice as an art. Here is a warning to aspiring writers: most Literature programs will not give you space to write anything beyond essays and academic articles. This is changing, but it is a gradual process. So I had to turn to independent courses. My greatest mentor in my first steps was the wonderful Noemi Jaffe, now the creator of Escrevedeira Cultural Center.
Then I discovered the postgraduate program in Writer Training at Instituto Vera Cruz, a lato sensu postgraduate course lasting two and a half years, inspired by MFA programs in Creative Writing in the English-speaking world. It was one of the most transformative experiences of my life. I entered as one writer and left as another, with a manuscript practically ready to be published. I took classes with some of the greatest names in Brazilian literature — Roberto Taddei, Sérgio Corsaletti, Marília Garcia, Isabela Noronha, Carolina Abed, and the incredible Julián Fuks, who kindly wrote a back-cover blurb with generous praise for my first book, Prismas, which was my final project for the course. If you would like to know more about the book, published by Editora Patuá, a giant among independent publishers, click here.
Soon after, I decided to move abroad. I have always had a connection with England that I cannot quite put into words, and, by some miracle, the Department of Literature, Drama and Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia accepted me into the Master’s program in Modernist and Contemporary Literature. UEA is a phenomenon that needs to be studied — and in fact is being studied — within the field of creative writing pedagogy. Many highly successful writers have emerged from there, such as Ian McEwan, Naomi Alderman, Giles Foden (with whom I have the pleasure of daily contact), and Kazuo Ishiguro (yes, a man who won the Nobel Prize in Literature).
The master’s degree was a bittersweet experience, but one that brought me many rewards, such as the discovery that my writing is received differently in English, that I feel extremely comfortable writing in a language in which words seem not to carry the same weight as in my mother tongue, and also the creation of important professional connections and lasting friendships.
My dissertation focused on the representation of blindness in literary works by Clarice Lispector, Raymond Carver, and Jorge Luis Borges. Reading such distinct authors in three different languages, yet who share the common ground of exploring the image of the blind person or the experience of blindness as an expressive tool, allowed me to argue that even when visual impairment is used as a metaphor, it still expresses an experience, and vice versa.
With little interval, I began a PhD in Critical-Creative Writing, also at the University of East Anglia. This time, I decided to expand the definition of disability I used in my master’s and to think about how literary forms can be influenced by, or entirely generated from, the experience of the disabled body-mind — this time not only blindness, but any condition of the body, the senses, or the mind seen as deviating from a standard of normality (increasingly diffuse). If you would like to know more, click here and go to the Research section of the website, where I explain it in more detail.
Navigating the world with a chronic illness that causes visual impairment and auditory processing difficulties has profoundly shaped my perspective — personally, academically, and creatively. This singular outlook runs through my writing and allows me to explore themes such as perception, identity, and the subtleties of human experience.