Maranhao's life and work is the subject of a new exhibition at Casa das Rosas in Sao Paulo, Brazil, a state-sponsored literary organization and exhibition space that promotes Brazilian poets and poetry. The exhibition runs September 4-23.
Here's a link to Casa das Rosas, translated imperfectly into English.
Here's a link to the official press release from the State of Sao Paulo, also translated imperfectly.
More about Salgado Maranhao in the Institute's press release:
Albany, NY— A native of Brazil’s dry, impoverished
northeast, Salgado Maranhão is a leading contemporary Afro-Brazilian poet, as
well as a songwriter for many of Brazil’s most prominent jazz, samba and pop
musicians. The son of a black fieldworker (mother) and a member of the white
plantocracy (father), Maranhão describes himself as “born both to slavery and
the manor house.”
Translated by Alexis
Levitin, Maranhão’s first bilingual collection in English and Portuguese, Blood of the Sun [Sol Sangüíne], will be
published in September 2012.
Gregory Rabassa,
bestselling translator of One Hundred
Years of Solitude, called the new translation, “a perfect English rendering
of Salgado Maranhão’s deft expression of the tonality of this people and land.” Writing in World Literature Today, Kaitlin Hawkins said that Maranhão’s new
work, “combines his love of jazz with his love of the written word. In verses
that pair socio-political thought with abstract and metaphysical subjects,
Maranhão’s lines move with the rhythms inherent to a Brazilian jazz ballad.”
Antonio Carlos Secchin, one of Brazil’s preeminent literary scholars, said, “Maranhão
has reached the high point of his work (so far)… a speculative intelligence and
a celebration of the corporality of the world are expressed with great
metaphoric vigor.”
Maranhão recently
received Brazil’s highest literary award, the Brazilian Academy of Letters
Prize, for his collected poems, A Cor da
Palavra [The Color of the Word]
(2011). An earlier collection, Mural de
Ventos [Mural of Winds] (1998) received the prestigious Prêmio Jabuti. Other collections include A pelagem da tigra [Tiger’s Fur] (2009), O Beijo
da Fera [The Kiss of the Beast] (1996), and Os Punhos da Serpente [The Snake’s Fists] (1989). Maranhão has also
written lyrics and composed music for an impressive roster of contemporary
Brazilian musicians including Amelinha, Elba Ramalho, Ney Matogrosso, Paulinho
da Viola, Rosa Marya Colin, Vital Farias, and Zizi Possi among others. A
tribute album by various artists, Amoragio,
was released in 2006.
