When I was young, in high school, I had a literature teacher who marked my life. His name, in itself, was already literary: Filadelfo. One day he invited the class to attend a lecture by Lygia Fagundes Telles at Fundação Santo André. Few were. I was one of them.
The night was rainy and Lygia was a little late. The explanation she gave seemed like a tale. She spoke of the labyrinthine streets and how getting there had been an adventure, she did it in such a captivating way that no one complained about the delay.
I already had literary leanings, but after that talk, I couldn't help but dream of being a writer.
As a teenager, I don't remember having books at home. My earliest memory as a reader was some catechism booklets, with illustrated passages from the Bible. Nobody read at home. Neither newspaper nor magazine. Anything.
When I started working in a paper factory (look at fate pushing me towards books), I bought some crates from the fair and set up my bookshelf. I started with a collection of books from the old Jornal da Tarde, called Grandes Sucessos. “Lost Horizon”, “The Collector”, “In Cold Blood”, “The Day of the Jackal”, among many others.
Soon after, I started to buy little books from Editora Españaiense, “Cantadas Literárias”, going to Livraria Cultura, in the Conjunto Nacional, going to cinemas and theaters. I spent hours reading at my desk, with only the lamp on, with a clock radio for company. I bought notebooks, wrote my poems. I was bewitched by literature.
It was unlikely that I would become someone connected with art. At home, my mother wanted me to be a machinist. Let the Senai do it. I'm sure she thought, "Oh, this boy has problems, he's just stuck in the middle of his books."
Despite the lack of resources and the simplicity that was the life of a fifteen- or sixteen-year-old in a neighborhood on the outskirts of Santo André, I fell in love with writing. Professor Filadelfo gave me the push I needed to fall into this reader's life. I never left her.
Later, I went to college. And I chose a profession in which I could work with writing. It was journalism or advertising. I chose the second option. Today, more than forty years later, I am still that boy who lived in a parallel world, who dreamed of the magical stories that came out of those paper objects.
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For me, reading is a journey that doesn't just take you to other places, such as deserted islands, medieval castles and unknown planets, but goes beyond, making us live other lives. Someone has said — and if he hasn't, I'll say it — that we write (and read) when our life isn't enough for us. That's it. That's the magic.
Books transport us on a journey through time and make us feel emotions that an ordinary life does not contain. Long live reading!
