Brazilian Author Shares Global Library Stories

(MENAFN- Brazil-Arab News Agency (ANBA)) São Paulo – Since her early twenties, the life of Brazil's Daniela Chindler has been closely tied to libraries. She was studying Law when she dropped out to pursue a degree in Languages and Literature and become a school librarian at a small school.“The library was in the garage of a house that had been rented to serve as the school. At the time, I had no idea which books were suitable for the different age groups of children who came to hear the stories, including two- and three-year-olds,” she recalls. She then decided to set up a library in a community.“At 22, I was leading a volunteer project in the Vidigal community; it lasted five years, we welcomed more than 200 children and created a space with very simple and low-cost solutions to display the books.

From there, pursuing a degree in Languages and Literature and writing her own books was a natural path. In 2012, she published Bibliotecas do Mundo [Libraries of the World], which won the Malba Tahan Prize from the National Foundation for Children's and Young People's Books (FNLIJ) and was adapted into a stage play produced by Sapoti, a company Chindler founded in the early 2000s. The play is occasionally restaged, especially in venues such as public schools in Rio. Chindler is now seeking a new home for the work, which will be reissued and updated.

At the end of this month, on Saturday the 28^th, she will relaunch Onde moram os livros? Bibliotecas do Brasil [Where Do Books Live? Libraries of Brazil] at Livraria Janela, in Laranjeiras, Rio. Originally published in 2017, it returns in a new, updated edition with contributions from six illustrators (five of them women).“I carried out a historical revision from a decolonial perspective, and in this version, we included a library that doesn't even exist yet, the Library of Knowledge.” It will be built in the area where Terreirão do Samba operates, near the Zumbi dos Palmares monument, and integrated into initiatives in the Pequena África region of Rio. The project is by Diébédo Francis Kéré, an architect from Burkina Faso and the only African to have received the Pritzker Prize.

When it was released in 2017, the book was distributed free of charge to 2,500 students in the municipal public school system of Rio de Janeiro. The text, like that of Bibliotecas do mundo, was adapted for theater in a play staged in three states: Rio de Janeiro, Maranhão, and Pará. Among the Brazilian libraries featured in the work are the Mário de Andrade Library in São Paulo and, of course, the grand National Library in Rio-where the book was launched.

Egypt and Iraq

While in Bibliotecas do Brasil there is one that does not yet exist, in Bibliotecas do mundo there is one that no longer exists. Chindler chose seven libraries around the world to feature in her book, including the historic Library of Alexandria.“I do a lot of research to write my books, and for this one I really went deep. On Alexandria, I studied extensively to bring in some historical (libraries) that weren't very well known,” the author says.

“The Library of Alexandria was, for centuries, the cultural center of the world. It brought together scholars from many places. It housed shelves of papyrus scrolls and the first codices,” she says. Destroyed in the 7^th century AD, it held one million papyrus scrolls.

From Iraq, she brings the story of the Basra Library, destroyed during the 2003 war.“What interested me here was less the building's architecture or the history itself, and more the fact that the books were saved by a woman, Alia Muhammad, who rescued 30,000 books,” Chindler says. After the war, the library was rebuilt, and the books sheltered by the staff member during the conflict once again had a home.

Cultural projects

Chindler enjoys large-scale undertakings-and not only those she writes and publishes (she has more than ten books to her name). At Sapoti, she also designs visits to museums and cultural spaces, always in a fun and interactive way. The curation and script for the guided tours-what she calls“theatricalized visits”-at the Petit Trianon, headquarters of the Brazilian Academy of Letters, was her first historical research project and ran for 15 years.“The project was created for the ABL's centennial celebrations (1997), and I was invited by writer Nélida Piñon, who was the institution's president, the first woman to hold the position,” she recalls.

This year, she continues with a theatricalized tour of the iconic Municipal Theater of Rio de Janeiro, in which actors retell the city's history in the early 20^th century-the theater opened in 1909-as well as projects at the Banco do Brasil Cultural Center (CCBB). Chindler has also led dozens of reading promotion initiatives, including“Stories Beyond Walls,” aimed at women deprived of liberty, in place since August 2021 (a project developed with funding from the Federal Cultural Incentive Law-Rouanet Law).

For someone who started in a small garage and has taken reading even into prisons, there is no shortage of stories to tell.

Check it out:
Sapoti Projetos website
Sapoti Instagram
Sapoti YouTube

Report by Débora Rubin, in collaboration with ANBA

Translated by Guilherme Miranda

SuppliedReprodution

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