Nilza Amaral

Nilza Amaral agreed to be interviewed via e-mail by Nicola Warwick.

NW: What was your childhood like?

NA: As I lived in the interland of São Paulo City, a town named São Carlos, I had a very funny childhood, swimming and fishing in the rivers pretending to smoke cigarettes made of raw corn, playing doctor and nurse. I remember myself running in the fields and at night counting stars. We could do that; there was no pollution. A little later when I was a girl scout, I remember camping in the wild and my task: cooking meals. So different from all the things children can do nowadays.

NW: How is Republic Square different from the time when "the only preoccupation was to count stars"?

NA: There was a time without violence in the world. You could cross dark squares in the cities free from fear. You could have dates, sit on the benches under the trees, kiss your boy-friend, count the stars. Although in Brazil the violence and drugs came later than in the developed countries they came. And so the dark places shaded by trees became dangerous. Republic Square is downtown São Paulo. It used to be a place for artists, poets and hippies who showed and sold their works in the sixties and seventies. Teenagers like me at that time, put on their "Sunday clothes" and heels to walk to and fro across the square trying to draw the attention of those wonderful people. But that time was gone with the wind . . .

NW: Can you tell us about your interest in Olavo Bilac? Why do you like his work so much?

NA: He was a a poet of the Parnasianism school whose most famous sonnet was "Ora direis ouvir estrelas," a kind of "It's nonsense to listen to stars." As I was 15 I imagined a man who could say such things holding me in his arms and whispering those words in my ears. Very soon I learned that his verses were constructed inside a very hard structure. But the passion had already been installed and we love with the heart not with the reason. Unfortunately there is no translation available of Olavo Bilac.

NW: Do you have any particular favourite English literature books? Or any specific favourite authors?

NA: I like all of Shakespeare's works, the tragedies, the comedies and the sonnets. He is the first for me because of his significance today as it was in the past. The plot he wrote about is very meaningful in our advanced era: the ambition, the cruelty, the struggle for power. I like also Rosamond Lehmann an English novelist, who deals with female anguish in the same way as Henry James did. The Ballad and the Source was a work of hers. Concerning the poets, one I like is T.S. Eliot, translated here in Brazil by Idelma De Faria, a friend of mine. There are others. At my age we know a lot of things!

NW: Who is your favourite writer and why?

NA: Gabriel Garcia Marquez from Colombia, South America has been my inspiration. His genre is the realism fantastic the same as mine. He says that he retells his grandmother's stories. So do I. Clarice Lispector a Brazilian writer, dead some three years ago, an intimist writer, she wrote with her heart. Edgar Allen Poe because of his realism. Stephen King for his short stories of terror. Moravia an Italian who goes deep in his stories. Eugene O'Neil as a playwright, Nobel Prize 1936.

NW: What do you write as Zanil Lamar?

NA: For the mystery of the thing. It was exciting not to reveal my real name. People could be thinking: who will be so good a writer? Fantasies! I think that my ideas were a bit too advanced for a woman writer at that moment. I dared to write about forbidden things. My first book The Ballad of Stoic almost caused my expulsion from the family who could not put fiction apart from reality. So I'd better use a nickname. But it did not last so long a time.

NW: Where do you get the inspiration for your books? And is there any particular reason for writing in your chosen genre?

NA: If you are a good observer you have the real world to get inspired. O dia das lobas (The Day of She-wolves), was written in '84 a violent year in São Paulo, full of crimes of all kind. I collect news from newspapers and wrote the novel. The woman is always in the center of the plot as a strong character--that's the reason--the trilogy is: love-hate-society.

NW: What does O Florista mean? And what is the general theme of the book?

NA: The florist is a poor and ugly man who sells flowers. The theme of the book is desire according to Spinoza and seduction. The main persona is Tulipa who falls in love with the florist, a rude man of a social rank different from hers.

NW:Are any of your books autobiographical in any way?

NA: No way.

NW: Why do you write? Is it a compulsion?

NA: I have written and I write by compulsion, never for money. Which will not be refused. As at now I am an old woman around 60, I write to keep myself young. It's a tonic.

NW: How did A Balada de Estóica become part of the women's literature at the University of Boulder?

NA: At that time there was a Brazilian professor coordinating the literature area at the University of Colorado who had been in touch with some meaningful writers according to her opinion and I had a chance to be chosen.

NW: Are your books widely available in English?

NA: I wish they were.

NW: What type of reader do you write for?

NA: For all. It is the most grateful thing that all kinds of readers buy and read your stuff. I don't believe that there are the right people to read this or that book. It depends on the mind of each reader.

NW: Where do you live and what is your home like?

NA: It's a big house near the most beautiful park in São Paulo: The Ibirapuera. I'm surrounded by green and birds twittering. My home is always full of friends, I have a lot. Although at present only my husband and I live in it.

NW: How do you describe yourself?

NA: That's a hard question. Don't we always have an inverted image of ourselves? I see myself as a very funny person.

NW: What is your philosophy of life?

NA: It used to be: Live and let live. But I think that it didn't work. So it's only: Live.

Nicola Warwick is the author of life's little luxuries. She lives in Manchester in the North West of the UK. Nicola's articles have been published in various writing, computing, and electronics magazines. Read more about her here.

About the Author:

Bio
Learn more about the author.

The Importance of Being Female, by Nilza Amaral
An article written for Brazil Magazine.

Author's Web Site

E-mail the author.

[Featured Author][Interviews][About Nilza Amaral][Amaral Interview]