The panorama enjoyed by the traveler who walks among the fountains of the Burle Marx gardenlocated in the middle of the central axis of the city of Brasilia, is so clear that it is not even, like in so many other parks in the world, altered by the always annoying presence of pigeons. It’s not that there aren’t any in other parts of the city, but there is no trace of them there. After several days, a hypothesis emerges: those who are in charge of keeping them away are the you will carcar -a bird of prey from the falconid family, and of good size- that continually watches over there. Located in the vicinity of the axis that crosses with the central one, they are silhouetted against the distant landscape dominated by the ministries and the towers of the legislative power complex.
You have to force your imagination to imagine that less than seven decades ago there was nothing here. That the city, with very wide avenues with six lanes in each direction, extensive and with rotund buildings that stand out in the middle of the vastest perspectives, was built entirely from scratch according to the project, the dream or the delirium of its founder, the president Juscelino Kubitschekand its main architects, the urban planner Lúcio Costa and the architect Oscar Niemeyerwhich signs the most iconic properties of what has been the capital of Brazil since 1960.
His rationalist creature, where even the communications nodes They are designed so that everything flows in the best possible way – traffic jams are non-existent, cars move quickly along its roads and hardly any traffic jams are seen during rush hour – it is one of the most unique capitals in the world, in which A strange futuristic beauty is combined with the passage of time on its edges and materials.
With its bold geometries and dull facades, or the gray aluminum metalwork, it looks modern and old at the same time. It turns out to be on the other hand one of the safest cities of Latin America, where you can wander around at any time, and even take your mobile phone out of your pocket on public roads, without your local companion urging you to hide it to continue one more day alive.
That does not mean that the entire urban fabric is the same, and even less so as soon as one leaves the original nucleus, in the shape of an airplane, with the fuselage pointing from west to east, and the wings from north to south. In this, all sectors are compartmentalized – hotels, shops, embassies, government headquarters, each thing has its specific area -, strictly obeying the design of those who conceived it; but, at the other extreme, within the metropolitan area of Brasilia is the largest favela in all of Latin America, Rising Sunwhere crime rates are not as high as in other places in the country – compared to an average of twenty-something homicides per one hundred thousand inhabitants, the Brasilia area has half that – but no one pays for the electricity – yes, the subscription to Netflix or the Internet connection, because if they don’t cut them off – and it is not advisable to enter after dark, at least if you want to leave dressed or alive.
Without reaching that point, a constellation of suburbs has proliferated around the capital, some as emblematic as Vila Planaltowhere the architectural rationalism of Niemeyer conspicuous by its absence, and in which the other division of the place is visible at first glance. Full of boats, popular restaurants, in some the yellow and green colors of the flag predominate, which identifies the Bolsonaro sector of the population, and in others the red prevails, which reveals the followers of the PT of Lula.
Among the latter, none more famous than Tia Zeliaunder the direction of the owner of the same name, a woman of humble origins who arrived in the capital in the back of a truck and who set up this emporium. His figure and his establishment achieved fame when, during the prison of today’s new president, he sent food to the prison in a lunch box. Lula himself drops by from time to time, and during the week it is not unusual to see the official cars of ministers, senators and other heroes of the left in the dirt parking lot attached to his outdoor picnic area.
Now that it governs again, they have not disappeared from the immense gardens and wide roads of Brasilia the homeless, who camp wherever they can, and who even see one sleeping in the middle of the sidewalk, as a reminder that this society, one of the most thriving in America – and in the world – has its fractures and its pending subjects.
During the stay, on the occasion of the crime novel meeting organized by the Cervantes Institute of Brasiliathere is time for a guided tour of one of the crown jewels, along with the cathedral – with its peculiar bell tower, once financed with Spanish money – and the National Congress: the Itamaraty palace, headquarters of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and, according to those in the know, the Niemeyer’s masterpiece. It is a building that impresses inside and out, with its spacious, open-plan rooms and without a pillar to support the ceilings that seem to be suspended in the air. From its upper floor, open to an elegant archway, those who attend the official receptions held there can enjoy both a gentle breeze and unbeatable views of the government complex.
Work by Rafael Leoz
In the sessions, which take place in the spacious headquarters of the Cervantes Institute – here everything is generous in surface, another example is the gigantic Embassy of Spain, one of the few works of the Spanish architect Rafael Leozpraised among others by Le Corbusier -, there is an opportunity to debate other aspects, those of criminal fiction in these turbulent days of the 21st century.
The writer and journalist from São Paulo Marcal Aquino exposes the paradox of his work on the most disadvantaged layers of Brazilian society, which he discovered as a reporter and fictionalized as a novelist, under the continuous reproach of being a white man who could not understand the reality about which he wrote. The Argentina Claudia Pineiro meditates on how the center is always power, and hence the vocation of the crime novel to go to the periphery, where the disempowered and the dispossessed are, to try to tell their version. The Venezuelan Marcos Tarreexiled in Buenos Aires, remembers the impact that drug trafficking, to which he has dedicated a good part of his work, has in Latin America, which due to its influence is today the most violent society in the world. The Spanish Emili Bayo and Berna González Harbor They point to the need to investigate the fear and shock that crime inspires in us, the first, and the literary potential of a genre often considered minor, the second. The Spanish also adheres to this same consideration Victoria Gonzalezwhich confirms that despite its emerging, and even hegemonic, nature in the publishing space, crime fiction continues to be the object of condescension from critics. Something that, on the other hand, does not happen on the banks of the Río de la Plata, the Argentinean points out with shrewd judgment. Nicolas Ferraroperhaps because two authors who uphold the canon of national literature, Jorge Luis Borges and Ricardo Pigliathey approached the police officer with ease. Finally, the Spanish Blanca Riestraa literary migrant from Spanish to Galician, vindicates the intrinsic value of the language itself.
Overall, the effort of Raquel Romerodirector of the Cervantes de Brasilia, and her entire team, illuminate a rich and substantial dialogue, while contributing to cultural diplomacy on a front that is not insignificant for our language. After having been a mandatory offer in Brazilian education for a few years, and then withdrawn, Congress recently refused to consider an amendment to the Education law to reintroduce it.
In the failure, by the way, our European “partners” in Italy, France and Germany exerted some influence, all three jealous that their respective languages were not given the same treatment. The lost battle, however, should not lead to despair. In their walks through the geometries of Brasiliathe traveler notes that the signs that explain them are in three languages: that of the place, English and Spanish. We form, as the meeting also proves, part of the same conversation that, sooner or later, and beyond the lucidity or blindness of the politicians, must impose its law.
#Geometries #Brasilia