Mariana Brecht delivers a book about wanting. And I ended up wanting more. Wanting to read more from the author. Wanting to know more about the trip. Wanting to understand more about the Congo. Wanting to try a photo with the sapeurs.
Through a self-fictional political thriller, Mariana Brecht introduces us to Brazza , her debut book, where she narrates the experience of the protagonist Manuela, 27 years old, who embarks on a freelance job in the audiovisual production area at a cistern company in the Republic from the Congo and ends up having her passport confiscated and being forced to work in the political campaign for the reelection of the dictator president.
The work published this year by the publisher Moinho s brings together everything a good story needs, in addition to being absolutely well written.
With several layers, the book tells about the discoveries involving the customs of Brazzaville, the culture, cuisine and art of the country that for three decades has been led by an authoritarian government. In between, we have romance, tension and a writing that highlights themes like whiteness, sorority and, of course, love.
In the confusion between reality and fiction, the reader is led to an excellent observation exercise through the eyes of the protagonist - or would it be the author - to a totally new country. It would not be easy to get used to it and as the author tells us right at the beginning of the plot “four weeks take a while to pass when we miss you”.
Right in the first chapter, we follow Manuela disembarking in Brazzaville and then we have to ask: where is it? what do they eat? what was a young graduate doing there?
With her passport confiscated, in an accommodation where she was told not to trust anyone, her phone tapped, without the internet so that the opposition could not organize itself, many doubts and only one desire: to get out of there as soon as possible, the character manages to 'escape' of the repressive system by writing a diary, which ultimately results in the book that we have the possibility of reading.
From an audiovisual job for the construction of cisterns in the African country to the campaign of a dictator, this is how Manuela leads us through the plot, in which she leaves a great love in Brazil and finds herself entangled in a romance with a mysterious Congolese. Between finding places to narrate the authoritarian president's story, body responses to the driver's presence that takes her breath away, fear and the desire to go home, Manuela challenges herself in everything that was unimaginable until then. And the grace of the book is exactly that.
On the 16th, the protagonist narrates: “The journey through the Congo no longer made sense - a marginal and incomprehensible desire. Like all my journeys, I thought” .
We, as readers, can follow a super political thriller that leads to a story that mixes terror and love in the same proportion . And all of this is intersected by a topic that is little talked about - but urgent to be debated: whiteness. The character's race and class privileges further strain Brazza 's plot.
“ Fear is a construction that guarantees the place of privileges. But to end fear it would be necessary to end everything ”, he writes on page 100.
By getting involved with the Congolese driver, Manuela becomes aware of racial privilege and how this difference is evidenced, destroying the invisible and/or insensitive layers until then. We have a plot that deals with thorny themes like this one, forcing us, as readers, to follow the way in which the character becomes aware of what she is living and how she deconstructs privilege , but remains convinced of what she wants and believes.
Reading the book was an experience that put me in check with my own desires. Maybe I even want to be more like the main character. Donate myself on trips to unknown countries that I've always wanted to go - even without ever having heard of. Embark on amorous journeys with mysterious men under the crosshairs of an authoritarian government. Writing to survive (okay, that last part I already did) and narrating the experience of a near kidnapping in a diary, without access to the passport itself. Contrary to my convictions in the name of experience.
Mariana Brecht delivers a book about wanting . And I ended up wanting more. Wanting to read more from the author. Wanting to know more about the trip. Wanting to understand more about the Congo. Wanting to try a photo with the sapeurs.
Brazza finishes, but this will, no. We want more Mariana Brecht books. We want more intense stories like that.
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Jéssica Balbino is a fat woman, columnist for Puta Peita, journalist, master in communication and believes that she can transform the world through narratives. She is the creator and editor of Margens , a project that disseminates content about peripheral women in writing. Curator of literary events across the country. Author of the books "Hip-Hop - A Cultura Marginal", "Traficando Conhecimento" and "Gasoline & phosphorus - my body in flames" (in press). Psychoanalyst in training.
