Marcelo Rubens Paiva: life, characteristics, works

Marcelo Rubens Paiva was born on May 1, 1959, in the city of São Paulo. He is the son of ex-deputy Rubens Paiva, who was arrested, tortured and killed in 1971, a victim of dheight milliter. Later, in 1979, the author had an accident while jumping into a lake and became a quadriplegic.

Brazil knew his story when, in 1982, he published the autobiographical book happy old year, which soon became a best seller. Thus, after his successful debut as a writer, he published other works, marked by irony, irreverence and social criticism.

Read too: Millôr Fernandes – author whose main literary characteristic is humor

Biography of Marcelo Rubens Paiva

Marcelo Rubens Paiva, in the book cover photo Chronicles to read at school, published with the Objetiva seal, of the Companhia das Letras Group.[1]

Marcelo Rubens Paiva was born on May 1, 1959, in the city of São Paulo. Like military coup, in 1964, his father, deputy Rubens Paiva (1929-1971), had his mandate revoked and went into exile. But he soon returned to Brazil, and the family moved to Rio de Janeiro. In 1971,

the writer's father was arrested, tortured and killed.

Thus, the novelist became another son of a political disappeared from the Brazilian military dictatorship (1964-1985). From then on, his mother, Eunice Paiva (1932-2018), had to raise her five children on her own. The family returned to São Paulo, where the writer studied at Colégio Santa Cruz and started writing for the school newspaper.

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Later, Marcelo Rubens Paiva experienced another episode that changed the course of his life. He studied agricultural engineering at the State University of Campinas, lived in a student republic, was part of the Central Directory of Students (DCE) and was writing for the Unicamp newspaper, when, on December 14, 1979, he jumped into a lake, fractured the fifth vertebra of his spine. cervical and became quadriplegic at the age of 20.

He went through a long and difficult treatment, but was able to use his hands and arms again. So, at the age of 21, started writing his first and most famous book —happy old year — published in 1982. The work became a best seller, and Marcelo Rubens Paiva thus began his writing career.

From there, he began to devote his life to political activism and writing. He studied at the School of Communications and Arts at USP and earned a master's degree in Theory of Literature at Unicamp. In addition, he won the Jabuti awards, in 1983, Moinho Santista, in 1985, and Shell de Teatro, in 2000. Since 2002, he has been a columnist for state (or The State of S. Paul). In 2016, he turned down the Order of Cultural Merit in protest against the Temer government.

It is a left-wing author, faces the mobility difficulties experienced by Brazilian wheelchair users on a daily basis and is always willing to fight for accessibility for people with disabilities. In addition, he is a theater director and, in 2016, he participated in the opening ceremony of the Paralympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.

See too: Hilda Hilst — awarded writer of the third phase of Brazilian modernism

Characteristics of the work of Marcelo Rubens Paiva

Marcelo Rubens Paiva's books are part of contemporary Brazilian literature and, in general, have the following characteristics:

• irony;
• irreverence;
• sociopolitical criticism;
• memorialistic character;
• fragmented language;
• conversational tone;
• political engagement;
• urban theme;
• non-conformity with reality.

Works by Marcelo Rubens Paiva

Book cover happy old year, by Marcelo Rubens Paiva, published with the Alfaguara seal, of the Companhia das Letras Group.[2]

→ Prose

• happy old year (1982)
• Blackout (1986)
• Ua: brari— across the world (1990)
• Bullet in the needle (1992)
• the females (1994)
• It's not you, Brazil (1996)
• bike mad (2002)
• the man who knew women (2006)
• the second time i met you (2008)
• Chronicles to read at school (2011)
• So, did you eat? (2012)
• The truths she doesn't tell (2012)
• 1 dribble, 2 dribble, 3 dribble: small citizen's handbook (2014)
• I'm still here (2015)
• the marxist orangutan (2018)
• the ridiculous man (2019)

→ theater

• 525 lines (1989)
• So, did you eat? (1998)
• more-than-imperfect (2001)
• show closet (2003)
• the lies men tell (2003)
• in the rearview mirror (2003)
• I love you (2003)
• the coldest night of the year (2011)
• the predator enters the room (2012)
• Cest la vie (2014)
• urban loves (2016)

See too: Nelson Rodrigues – renowned playwright of Brazilian literature

happy old year

happy old year is the debut work of Marcelo Rubens Paiva. The book is autobiographical and tells the author's recovery process after an accident that left him paralyzed, while jumping into a lake. So, everything starts on December 14, 1979, at 5 pm:

"I climbed on a rock and yelled:

“There, Gregor, I'm going to find the treasure you've hidden down here, you undercover millionaire. I jumped with Tio Patinhas' pose, hit my head on the floor and that's when I heard the melody: biiiiiiin. He was underwater, he didn't move his arms or legs, he just saw the muddy water and heard: yiiiiiiiiiin. All the madness was over, he lowered the saint and gave me a complete state of lucidity: “I'm dying by drowning”. I kept calm, held my breath, knowing I would need it to float and hold on until someone noticed and got me out of there.”

Or it all starts on May 1, 1959, when the author was born:

“On the one hand, I am the grandson of landowners; on the other, an Italian merchant on Santa Rosa Street. The son of an engineer and a lawyer, I have beautiful paintings on the wall and floor in Persian rugs. The only callus I have on my hands is from playing the guitar. I don't have stiletto marks or bullet marks all over my body, just scratches from childhood under the beams. I always played in goal. I was born on this side of the rails, as a marginal only in high school, where my classmates were princes; I, just bourgeois.”

Anyway, the work focuses on the recovery of the author-character after the accident. and reports the three months he spent in the hospital, one of them in the ICU, the return home, life in the chair of wheels, the consultation with the psychologist, another operation accompanied by a 15-day hospital stay and the beginning of physiotherapy.

Anyway, the author narrates a year of his life from the accident and, in the midst of his account, he does not let the memory of his father, ex-deputy Rubens Paiva, who disappeared from the military dictatorship since 1971, die:

“After the amnesty, it became known about the atrocities committed in the cellars of the barracks. I even learned that a reporter, who was close to former President Médici at the Recife airport, heard someone say that Rubens Paiva had been killed. According to the reporter, our former president laughed and spoke to senator Vitorino Freire:

- Work accident.

Rubens Paiva was not the only one “disappeared”. There are hundreds of families in the same situation: children who do not know if they are orphans, women who do not know if they are widows. Probably the man who taught me to swim is buried as a pauper in some cemetery in Rio. What can I do? Justice in this country is an unimportant word. People in uniform still own Brazil, and they have a code of ethics for protect each other (as in the case of Riocentro).”

Image credits

[1] Company of Letters (reproduction)

[2] Company of Letters (reproduction)

by Warley Souza
Literature teacher