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| Paulo Scott: ‘literature is not an easy truth’ | Paulo Scott: ‘literature is not an easy truth’ |
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| The writer Paulo Scott is insistent, emphatic, bulldozing through the awkward corners of a second language with the fire of a former activist as he spells out the plight of indigenous people living in Brazil. | The writer Paulo Scott is insistent, emphatic, bulldozing through the awkward corners of a second language with the fire of a former activist as he spells out the plight of indigenous people living in Brazil. |
| “At this exact moment families are being destroyed by invaders – by farmers, mayors, sheriffs who just kill them if they resist,” he says. “It’s never stopped. That’s why brave indigenous leaders, young and old, say ‘We’re still at war … you’re still killing us.’” | “At this exact moment families are being destroyed by invaders – by farmers, mayors, sheriffs who just kill them if they resist,” he says. “It’s never stopped. That’s why brave indigenous leaders, young and old, say ‘We’re still at war … you’re still killing us.’” |
| The desperate situation of the Guaraní people is at the heart of Scott’s first novel to be translated into English. An audacious story of a student activist who meets a young indigenous girl by the side of a motorway and turns her life upside down, Nowhere People won Brazil’s Machado de Assis prize in 2012. According to the author, it is the “very first time Brazilian literature has given voice to an indigenous woman”. | The desperate situation of the Guaraní people is at the heart of Scott’s first novel to be translated into English. An audacious story of a student activist who meets a young indigenous girl by the side of a motorway and turns her life upside down, Nowhere People won Brazil’s Machado de Assis prize in 2012. According to the author, it is the “very first time Brazilian literature has given voice to an indigenous woman”. |
| Scott was a partner in a law firm and teaching at the university in Porto Alegre when he started reading about the wave of suicides sweeping through those who have lost their lands to agribusiness. As cattle ranchers and soybean farmers move on to ancestral lands, he explains, the spiritual connection indigenous people feel with the forest is broken. “I realised that indigenous teenagers were killing themselves because they perceived they could never be part of the contemporary world. They are condemned to be part of the indigenous world.” | Scott was a partner in a law firm and teaching at the university in Porto Alegre when he started reading about the wave of suicides sweeping through those who have lost their lands to agribusiness. As cattle ranchers and soybean farmers move on to ancestral lands, he explains, the spiritual connection indigenous people feel with the forest is broken. “I realised that indigenous teenagers were killing themselves because they perceived they could never be part of the contemporary world. They are condemned to be part of the indigenous world.” |
| As he travelled around the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul, meeting indigenous leaders, doctors and activists, he started to realise the difficulty of bridging the gap between the indigenous world view and modern life, even for those with the best intentions. But it was only after meeting a 13-year-old girl who was camping by the side of a road, that he found the character around whom Nowhere People revolves, the girl who “became Maína in my head”. | As he travelled around the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul, meeting indigenous leaders, doctors and activists, he started to realise the difficulty of bridging the gap between the indigenous world view and modern life, even for those with the best intentions. But it was only after meeting a 13-year-old girl who was camping by the side of a road, that he found the character around whom Nowhere People revolves, the girl who “became Maína in my head”. |
| “She couldn’t speak Portuguese,” he remembers, just enough to tell him the price of the baskets she was selling. “She was taking care of these very young boys. In her eyes was that feeling she was looking at someone she knew inhabited a world into which she could never cross.” | “She couldn’t speak Portuguese,” he remembers, just enough to tell him the price of the baskets she was selling. “She was taking care of these very young boys. In her eyes was that feeling she was looking at someone she knew inhabited a world into which she could never cross.” |
| The first half of the novel describes how a fictional Paulo – a student activist from Porto Alegre like his creator – tries to help Maína. Everything he does only seems to make things worse and soon he finds himself getting a 15-year-old girl pregnant. The age of consent in Brazil is only 14, but Paulo’s creator is makes no excuses for his character getting into what he calls almost a “rape situation”. | The first half of the novel describes how a fictional Paulo – a student activist from Porto Alegre like his creator – tries to help Maína. Everything he does only seems to make things worse and soon he finds himself getting a 15-year-old girl pregnant. The age of consent in Brazil is only 14, but Paulo’s creator is makes no excuses for his character getting into what he calls almost a “rape situation”. |
| “It’s a relationship between a settler and a native,” Scott explains. “Even when he wants to help, he can’t help.” This twentysomething activist is “a symbol of Brazil’s new era of democratisation, but he’s still a coloniser.” | “It’s a relationship between a settler and a native,” Scott explains. “Even when he wants to help, he can’t help.” This twentysomething activist is “a symbol of Brazil’s new era of democratisation, but he’s still a coloniser.” |
| The final element of the novel came to the author in a dream, “or maybe a nightmare. This man with a wooden mask strapped to his face was standing in front of me, singing a funeral song,” He stands to demonstrate the plaintive tune of the mysterious protester who appears in the second half of his novel. | The final element of the novel came to the author in a dream, “or maybe a nightmare. This man with a wooden mask strapped to his face was standing in front of me, singing a funeral song,” He stands to demonstrate the plaintive tune of the mysterious protester who appears in the second half of his novel. |
| Combining these strands took more than six years and over 20 drafts. The novel fizzes with anger, but Scott insists that his initial concern was merely to tell a good story. A writer can’t become “contaminated by a vision”, he says. “Literature doesn’t have any commitment to anything else – religion, morality, politics. If you put literature to work, fill it with ideology, then you kill the story.” | Combining these strands took more than six years and over 20 drafts. The novel fizzes with anger, but Scott insists that his initial concern was merely to tell a good story. A writer can’t become “contaminated by a vision”, he says. “Literature doesn’t have any commitment to anything else – religion, morality, politics. If you put literature to work, fill it with ideology, then you kill the story.” |
| Nowhere People is much more than just a “good story”. It’s a slippery novel which starts in a footnote stretching over eight pages, slides from one character’s perspective to another’s in the course of a paragraph and smears its restless present tense into glimpses of what’s going to happen next. | Nowhere People is much more than just a “good story”. It’s a slippery novel which starts in a footnote stretching over eight pages, slides from one character’s perspective to another’s in the course of a paragraph and smears its restless present tense into glimpses of what’s going to happen next. |
| Scott tells how his Brazilian publisher, Alfaguara, asked him to change the footnotes, to smooth over the shifting tenses, to alter the ending, but he insisted it was the only way to tell this story. “I don’t want to be another Jean-Paul Sartre, another Machado de Assis – I want to do it my way,” he says. | Scott tells how his Brazilian publisher, Alfaguara, asked him to change the footnotes, to smooth over the shifting tenses, to alter the ending, but he insisted it was the only way to tell this story. “I don’t want to be another Jean-Paul Sartre, another Machado de Assis – I want to do it my way,” he says. |
| Apart from his work as a lawyer, Scott – who was born in 1966 – has run a surfwear company, been a student activist and worked in academia, but kept coming back to the freedom of literature. | Apart from his work as a lawyer, Scott – who was born in 1966 – has run a surfwear company, been a student activist and worked in academia, but kept coming back to the freedom of literature. |
| “The truth you can only find in literature is not an easy truth,” he says. “When philosophers, scientists, mathematicians, engineers, doctors, go to literature it’s because there are very strong truths that only exist in literature – it’s not a safe condition, it’s not an easy place.” | “The truth you can only find in literature is not an easy truth,” he says. “When philosophers, scientists, mathematicians, engineers, doctors, go to literature it’s because there are very strong truths that only exist in literature – it’s not a safe condition, it’s not an easy place.” |
| He had already published a collection of poetry and a book of short stories when the seeds of the novel were sown back in 2004 and attributes his passionate interest in words, in the texture of language, to the difficulties created by a childhood stutter. | He had already published a collection of poetry and a book of short stories when the seeds of the novel were sown back in 2004 and attributes his passionate interest in words, in the texture of language, to the difficulties created by a childhood stutter. |
| “My parents sent me to a shrink, because of my stutter,” he explains. “Even when I was making speeches as a student, or in the court as a lawyer, or with my students as a teacher, even now, I’m always dealing with the words. Sometimes I want to go in one direction and I can’t, because I can’t say it, I just go ‘K-k-k-k …’ I have to go around it, have to stop.” | “My parents sent me to a shrink, because of my stutter,” he explains. “Even when I was making speeches as a student, or in the court as a lawyer, or with my students as a teacher, even now, I’m always dealing with the words. Sometimes I want to go in one direction and I can’t, because I can’t say it, I just go ‘K-k-k-k …’ I have to go around it, have to stop.” |
| This uneasy relationship with language permeates his prose, filling it with a “grey light”, an ambiguity which the reader can never penetrate. It’s a difficult path for a writer, and one that risks losing the attention of readers, of critics and reviewers, Scott admits, but “you have to keep strong”. | This uneasy relationship with language permeates his prose, filling it with a “grey light”, an ambiguity which the reader can never penetrate. It’s a difficult path for a writer, and one that risks losing the attention of readers, of critics and reviewers, Scott admits, but “you have to keep strong”. |
| In 2008 he moved to Rio de Janeiro, leaving behind a “comfortable life” as an academic because he became “anxious about death, the possibility of dying without doing the things which were really important to me”. But life as a full-time writer is something of a challenge. | In 2008 he moved to Rio de Janeiro, leaving behind a “comfortable life” as an academic because he became “anxious about death, the possibility of dying without doing the things which were really important to me”. But life as a full-time writer is something of a challenge. |
| “I’ve been living for four years from my writing,” Scott says, “and next year I’m going to have to find a new job, because I can’t pay my bills.” Without a fellowship, or a movie deal, or another prize he’ll run out of money. “If I think I can’t keep the same spirit in my work, the same atmosphere, then I’ll stop writing for a while. It’s the only way.” | “I’ve been living for four years from my writing,” Scott says, “and next year I’m going to have to find a new job, because I can’t pay my bills.” Without a fellowship, or a movie deal, or another prize he’ll run out of money. “If I think I can’t keep the same spirit in my work, the same atmosphere, then I’ll stop writing for a while. It’s the only way.” |
| With New York and London still gatekeepers to a global audience, the publication of Daniel Hahn’s supple version in English is “a kind of dream”. But there’s little prospect an international readership will push Scott in a more commercial direction. | |
| “My mother said ‘Write an easier book, write a traditional book,’ and my father said ‘Hey Marlene, he can only write honestly in his way. Leave the boy alone’.” | “My mother said ‘Write an easier book, write a traditional book,’ and my father said ‘Hey Marlene, he can only write honestly in his way. Leave the boy alone’.” |
| Nowhere People is published by And Other Stories | Nowhere People is published by And Other Stories |
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