{"id":44625,"date":"2018-07-02T10:16:40","date_gmt":"2018-07-02T13:16:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rioonwatch.org\/?p=44625"},"modified":"2025-08-07T12:07:29","modified_gmt":"2025-08-07T15:07:29","slug":"the-inspiration-behind-geovani-martins-critically-acclaimed-favela-centered-book-book-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/?p=44625","title":{"rendered":"The Inspiration Behind Geovani Martins’ Critically Acclaimed Favela-Centered Book [BOOK REVIEW]"},"content":{"rendered":"

Clique aqui para Por<\/strong>tugu\u00eas<\/strong><\/strong><\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

June 19, breakout author Geovani Martins<\/a> spoke at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio) about the launch of his critically acclaimed<\/a> first book, <\/span>O Sol na Cabe\u00e7a <\/span><\/i><\/a>(<\/span>The Sun on the Head<\/span>). <\/span><\/p>\n

Martins\u2014who was born in Bangu<\/a> in Rio\u2019s West Zone<\/a>, spent his teenage years in the South Zone<\/a>\u2019s Vidigal<\/a>, and now lives in neighboring Rocinha<\/a>\u2014drew from his own experiences in Rio\u2019s favelas to construct a series of thirteen short stories centered around fictional, primarily favela-based characters across the city. Through a range of unique narratives, <\/span>O Sol na Cabe\u00e7a<\/span><\/i> develops a complex image of life in favelas while highlighting common problems such as living alongside Pacifying Police Units<\/a> (UPPs) and daily prejudice at the hands of Rio\u2019s more affluent population. Since its launch in March of this year, the book has been met with tremendous success<\/a>. Critics have published praise across national Brazilian media and <\/span>O Sol na Cabe\u00e7a<\/span><\/i> became the first Brazilian book in history to sell publishing rights to translations in nine countries in anticipation of its release. Rights have even been sold for a film adaptation.<\/span><\/p>\n

At PUC-Rio, Martins discussed his inspirations for the book, citing first and foremost his experience across many of the city\u2019s favelas. Aside from moving nearly twenty times throughout favelas, through the Literary Festival of the Urban Periphery<\/a> (FLUPP) Martins visited a different favela every weekend in 2013 to exchange feedback and experience with other favela authors. He said that until that period, he \u201ccould not simply look at [the favela] and imagine a book made up of those stories\u201d of the people and places within, and only began to see the potential in them<\/a> after participating in FLUPP. Additionally, the idiosyncrasies he noticed in different communities, from slang to varying mannerisms and attitudes<\/a>, gave him material to write a book full of different characters placed across the city.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

To provoke reflections on racism in the city, Martins made the decision not to describe any of the characters in the book by their skin color except for the few white characters. Most books, he feels, even those by some of his favorite authors, tend to put \u201c\u2018black\u2019 as the definition of black characters in the book,\u201d from the character’s introduction onwards. Meanwhile, nondescript characters are assumed to be white by default, as if literature\u2014which is a reflection of society<\/a>, he stressed\u2014were a space for white characters and black characters did not belong. With that in mind, Martins placed his \u201ccolorless\u201d characters in situations that are \u201cimpossible to imagine with all white characters,\u201d such as being stopped, patted down, and threatened by Military Police<\/a> in the streets, and made the whiteness of the white characters a defining trait. The book \u201csays all the time without really saying and rubs it in everyone\u2019s face that this is the view society has of that population,\u201d he explained, emphasizing the naturalized forms of prejudice that Afro-Brazilians face<\/a> in the supposed racial democracy of Brazil. <\/span><\/p>\n

O Sol na Cabe\u00e7a <\/span><\/i>is especially unique in its extensive use of slang, with some stories exclusively using slang-heavy, colloquial speech<\/a> contrasted with others in the book using only formal Portuguese. While many books that employ slang follow it with an explanation for readers who are unfamiliar with it, Martins sought to make his dialogues as natural as possible, not explaining the meanings of any words or phrases and consciously leaving many readers out of the loop while giving voice to under-heard populations that speak that way. In not catering to those who do not understand, he \u201cended up obligating [readers] to have that conversation\u201d with friends, neighbors, peers, and coworkers from different areas about the language in the book. He “didn\u2019t want to present any universe as if it were something new,\u201d he explained, referring to his decision to present the reality of the favelas and their language without any context or translation for strangers to that reality. \u201cI asked myself, \u2018Who am I saying this for?\u2019\u201d he told the audience at PUC-Rio.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Clique aqui para Portugu\u00eas June 19, breakout author Geovani Martins spoke at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio) about the launch of his critically acclaimed first book, O Sol na Cabe\u00e7a (The […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":174,"featured_media":44684,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1288,1333,1268,1271,1334,1329],"tags":[1361,396,317,852,221,665,1341,666,558,1661,124,1189,12,156,453,363,21],"writer":[2748],"translator":[],"illustrator":[],"photographer":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-44625","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-highlight","8":"category-event-reports","9":"category-favelaculture","10":"category-favelaqualities","11":"category-reviews","12":"category-by-international-observers","13":"tag-endfavelastigma","14":"tag-art","15":"tag-bangu","16":"tag-book","17":"tag-favela-culture","18":"tag-flupp","19":"tag-language","20":"tag-literature","21":"tag-prejudice","22":"tag-puc","23":"tag-race","24":"tag-racism","25":"tag-rocinha","26":"tag-south-zone","27":"tag-stigma","28":"tag-vidigal","29":"tag-west-zone","30":"writer-chris-harden"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44625","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/174"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=44625"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44625\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81352,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44625\/revisions\/81352"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/44684"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=44625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=44625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=44625"},{"taxonomy":"writer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fwriter&post=44625"},{"taxonomy":"translator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftranslator&post=44625"},{"taxonomy":"illustrator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fillustrator&post=44625"},{"taxonomy":"photographer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fphotographer&post=44625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}