2023-05-01 18:52:38
Brief opening notes
Recently presented to the public, The Despair of Flowers is the book with which Miguel Luís won the literary competition Maria Odete de Jesus, promoted by the Polytechnic University. It is a literary work well accomplished.
Miguel Luís José is the full name of the author. He was born in Maputo and has a master’s degree in Investment Strategy and Internationalization; he has a law degree and postgraduate degrees in the legal and financial fields. He was vice-president of the Supervisory Board at the Mozambican Students Association in Portugal. He is an individual very attentive to the society in which he lives and, in addition to being an activist or participating in associative movements, makes literature one of the areas through which he exercises his citizenship. This has been his way of looking for happiness.
The helplessness of flowers: paper and pen in hand to get out of blindness
Man lives most of his time in search of happiness. Utopia is part of the path that leads to it. These are lessons drawn from two works by Zygmunt Bauman, the art of life e net times. Considering these assumptions, fiction literature, especially children’s literature, is, for me, this place to build imaginary and real worlds. It was also through this process that “Mozambique was born”. José Craveirinha, our the poet diedwhose centenary we are celebrating this year, is one of the heroes of this cause.
These suggestions came to my mind when I finished reading the aforementioned book and asked myself if there is more than a children’s literary work, a place to make children dream of a better world? A place where they can let their imagination run wild and broaden their skills (of whatever kind) and life skills? One of the answers to these questions can be found in the book The Despair of Flowers, between pages 65 and 67 and I quote: “a pen and paper in the hand of a boy who can read and write will always be instruments to show courage.” It is courage and knowing how to read and build worlds that we all need to inhabit this planet full of constant uncertainties and our country has many examples of this.
The book is Miguel Luís’ first literary work. It contains illustrations by Walter Zand and is a book aimed at children and young people and at young people and adolescents in every adult. It puts us before a pressing reflection on courage, (dis)obedience, attention to the environment in which we live and utopia or ingenuity.
These are two intertwined stories, told from the perspective of two narrators who know regarding the lives of all the characters, that is, omniscient narrators. They are stories centered on a black backdrop, child trafficking. Among other 14 kidnapped children is Carlitos, the protagonist.
This social problem transcends any legal control, in a real context. There are several powers in different countries fighting once morest this evil, but the desideratum continues. Also, very recently, in Mozambique, the report by the country’s Attorney General, Beatriz Buchile, was peremptory in stating that the country has yet to combat kidnappings. This phenomenon is similar to that of trafficking in minors.
The title of the book, in presentation, already announces this nebulous background. In principle, flowers should bring joy, but if they are helpless, they wither. And these flowers symbolize the children narrated in the story. The work is literarily well achieved, for raising a difficult and worrying subject. But he does it in a poetic way and with a simple and selected language, enough to be understood by everyone. This is what hooks the reader into the book. What is most complex in the work are the poetic images and they support the reader so that he does not succumb to the pain narrated regarding child trafficking. The story has a balanced balance between fiction and reality.
Here are some examples of these images that can be found on different pages: violence only feeds problems, it always makes them fat; she wanted to cry, but the tears did not come out, or perhaps they gushed from the inside of her eyes; it didn’t take long for the car to stop spitting out the loud honking horns and the driver’s door window opened like the sun breaking through clouds; thick white milk rained from both his nostrils; fat, heavy drops fell from my eyes and my body shook like an old car with an engine running.
These images, in addition to attenuating the probable tension that the reader might have from the theme addressed, soften the underlying utilitarian part in works of children’s or youth literature, that of educating and inculcating values and morals. Yes, because the substrate of this type of work is more the usefulness of its message than pleasure.
Having mentioned the part of the pleasure that reading the work gives, it is also important to allude to the utilitarian part, which is an invitation to common thinking and acting in our society. A thought of adults who can equip their children with skills to face this world, which, as we all know, is very cruel. And in this work, as I had already mentioned, the invitation is made with recourse to a struggle through the intellect: to educate.
Carlitos, the aforementioned protagonist, disobeyed his parents, deviated from his school path and paid a high price for doing so. But it was his courage and ingenuity that saved him. He might read and write and these skills gave him the wit he needed to get the police to help; following other ingenious attempts to escape captivity.
A pen and paper, that is, knowing how to read and write, plus the sharpness of his ingenuity saved him, himself and other children. It is because of this that I say that the work invites common thinking and acting: educating, obeying and being attentive to the world around us. There is a suggestion of the importance of educating children, leaving in them the necessary legacy so that they can survive in the face of the different adversities of life; because there will always be them, no matter what the child’s social background. They, too, knowing how to listen and see or how to read, which is also another invitation made by the work, will be able to learn to build new worlds or to face those that are exposed.
This work reminds me of José Saramago’s suggestion, in Essay on blindness, which says: If you can look, see. If you can see it, fix it. This challenges us to pay attention to the place we live in and, of course, to act on it. May we not live blindly. Literature fulfills this aim. And in the book being presented, there is a reflection on a close look at a social phenomenon and the way it happens, in detail.
Even more, the work suggests that we have to reinvent ourselves, write more, publish more and not resign ourselves to what has already been done, because humanity is still not civilized. The poets José Craveirinha have already told us this, in the poem “Civilização”, in which he states: once men built stadiums and temples and died in the arena like dogs, now they build cadillacs…. And José de Almada Negreiros, in The Invention of the Bright Day: when I was born, all the words that would save humanity had already been invented; humanity needs to be saved.
A paper and a pen should give us more courage to continue the fight in search of happiness.
Final notes on literary competitions
For unknown reasons, in Mozambique, three major literary competitions ceased to exist, namely: FUNDAC-Rui de Noronha, BCI and TDM. Meanwhile, the Maria Odete de Jesus Literary Contest has survived and coexisted with some contests in the Mozambican square, namely: Dez de Novembro, linked to the day of the city of Maputo; the José Craveirinha National Prize (organized by HCB – Hidroeléctrica de Cahora Bassa/AEMO – Association of Mozambican Writers); Fernando Leite Couto, from the Foundation with the same name; in recent times one has appeared, Carlos Morgado, namesake of the Foundation that organizes it. There are in Beira, linked to Editorial Readthe literary call of Read as well as the following literary competitions of the Associação Writing: Children’s Literature Award; FLIK Short Story Literary Contest (Kulemba Children’s Book Festival); FLIK Poetry Declamation Contest; FLIB (Beira Book Festival) chronicle competition and traditional short story writing competition. From the Municipal Council of Quelimane, it is worth mentioning the 21st of August Contest, linked to that city’s day. Sounding like a lot, they are not, for a country that intends to lower the illiteracy percentage of knowing how to read and write; functional illiteracy, content illiteracy and why not political illiteracy.
Promoting literary contests is to allow the discovery of new talents; encourage those who already write; encourage a taste for reading, writing and literature. All of this makes a huge contribution to the development of the country and the writers themselves, in various areas of life. At the same time, books are a place of memory, reflection and suggestions regarding and for life, and are an object of delight. Some developed countries add, to the budget for the health area, what should go to the area of culture, leisure and art; because stimulating intellectual or emotional enjoyment is a way to cure certain diseases. For this and for many other reasons, they must be praised and those who still organize them must be congratulated.
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