2003 CLAS Summer Research Report Bridget Christine Arce Spanish and Portuguese "Landscape, Time and Memory: The Workings of Memory in Two Novels by Milton Hatoum"

Milton Hatoum in front of his library, São Paulo, Brazil.

In the summer of 2003, I went to São Paulo, Brazil for three weeks in order to interview the renowned Amazonian author Milton Hatoum. Prior to leaving for Brazil, I had been working on a project comparing two novels by Milton Hatoum and exploring his use of memory and time within the context of a larger literary tradition. Hatoum’s novels are bestsellers in Brazil, yet, almost no critical or academic work has been done on his work. Professor Candace Slater was extremely receptive to my work, and encouraged me to continue working on the project as she maintained that it was highly publishable. She recommended that I interview the author whose works my project is based on, who was a visiting professor for a month last fall. To this end, I went to São Paulo, Brazil, where he currently resides, in order to interview him for the completion of my project which deals with the uses of memory in the construction of individual and collective narratives. I also conducted research investigating what had actually been written about Mr. Hatoum, and found some interviews, many newspaper articles and a few graduate essays published at the Federal University of São Paulo.

My paper will explore the function of memory in two novels by Amazonian writer Milton Hatoum, Dois irmãos (2000) and Relato de um certo oriente (1989). By examining these texts, it will specifically explore the various uses and manifestations of memory in the construction of his narratives. Furthermore, it will examine the use of individual and collective memory as a tool for the reconstruction of a family's past, in addition to considering the power of memory as a source of healing and liberation. It will accomplish this through an exploration of the ways in which time, the senses (olfactory and perceptual), landscape (or the forest) and the role of the narrator all function as agents of memory.

My trip to Brazil was very successful, as I conducted a four-hour long interview with Mr. Hatoum, in which we discussed his work within the context of Brazilian and world literature, as well as the ramifications that his work may have for the literary tradition in Brazil. He was very receptive to all my questions, and our dialogue will prove indispensable towards my own project that investigates the essence and nature of cultural production, and the traces or residues of the past that can be recovered through the medium of literature.

We discussed the very nature of memory itself, the urgency that pervades his text with regards to the reconstruction of the past. He commented on the mechanisms of memory, and his belief that as a writer, there must be some element of “lived experience” in order for a his/her work to be authentic, or rather, to avoid ringing hollow. Memory in his novels is represented as an autonomous agent that is not empiracal, but rather polyphonous, highly subjective and muteable. Many things are left unknown, or unsaid. I asked him if this unsettling, or fragmentation of knowledge was part of his literary project that purports to underscore the ambiguous nature of truth and fact, or whether there was an other underlying motive for his destabilizing approach. Furthemore, I asked him if his ludic, nostalgic tone was in tension with the very vivid presence of the material in his writing, as the senses seem to play an important role in his project of memory that contradicts the rational and empircal notions of time. I also inquired as to the relationship between his own marginalized identity within Brazilian society (as a son of Lebanese immigrants from a marginalized and exoticized region of Brazil) and the creative process. He responded at length to these and many other questions, and his responses will illuminate my article in an original way as very seldomly is one able to include the responses of the writer in an academic article. As he is also a professor of literature, our discussion was extremely fruitful as his literary optic is formed both as the writer and the critic, making his anwers to my questions particularly insightful and exciting for my project as a whole.

Finally, this project, as mentioned, relates to my research and career goals as I will be taking my qualifying examinations in Latin American and Brazilian literature this spring. Moreover, an academic article, as well as an in-depth interview on an important but nonethess critically ignored author, will be pivotal towards advancing my career as a professor of literature. Furthermore, the predominant tropes and themes that I articulate in this project are ones that I will investigate in my thesis as well, serving as critical part of my overall intellectual project that purports to bring Latin American and Brazilian literature together, rather than leaving them as discrete and isolated traditions that do not intersect.

Milton Hatoum at home in São Paulo.