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Centre for the Study of Contemporary Women's Writing (CCWW)

Christiana de Caldas Brito

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Christiana de Caldas Brito photographed in 2003 by Claudio Miscia (photo courtesy of the author)

Christiana de Caldas Brito was born in Rio de Janeiro in 1939. She spent time in the USA (1957-1958), Argentina (1968-1970), and Austria (1970-1972). Since 1990 she has lived in Rome. She studied Philosophy in Brazil and later, in Italy, Psychology and Drama, and for many years has practised as a psycho­therapist in these two countries. Daughter of a writer, she started writing very young, publishing stories in Brazilian magazines, but only pursued this passion when she moved to Italy.

De Caldas Brito is one of the most original and creative voices of the fairly new phenomenon of transcultural literature written in Italian by non-native authors. The short story ‘Ana de Jesus’ (turned into a monologue for the stage and performed in several Italian cities) earned her a prize at the Concorso Eks&Tra, the first award for non-native Italian writers, in 1995 and, in the following years, she became one of the most popular and distinguished authors, confirmed by the literary awards she has received. She conducts regular workshops in creative writing and wrote Viviscrivi: Verso il tuo racconto (2008), a creative writing handbook.

The short story is de Caldas Brito’s favourite literary genre, and has published two collections: Amanda Olinda Azzurra e le altre (1998; 2004) and Qui e là: Racconti (2004). Many of her short stories have appeared in anthologies and online literary magazines. She is also interested in children’s literature and in 2000 wrote La storia di Adelaide e Marco on the themes of diversity and marginalization; other children’s fables have appeared in anthologies. In 2006 de Caldas Brito published her first novel, 500 temporali, set entirely in Brazil, which was translated and published there in 2011. This novel, set in a favela in Rio de Janeiro, portrays contemporary Brazil and its contradictions. Nevertheless, some of the issues that she treats, such as the intrusion of television into everyday life, the myth of easy money, and the cult of physical appearance, affect not only Brazil but also Western society in general. Her second novel, Colpo di mare (2018), is focused on a friendship between two women and employs a variety of styles and strategies. A realistic narrative prevails in the first part, set in Italy, while the second one, set in Brazil, deals with legends and myths of this country, something that gives the novel a fantastic dimension. She also consistently employs the literary device of ekphrasis within a metanarrative structure that reflects on the art of writing. In her output so far, de Caldas Brito has demonstrated that she is a writer who knows how to renew herself.

De Caldas Brito is also interested in theatre, having written one-act plays which have been performed, and acting in some of them. She has also written several essays in which she reflects on the meaning of learning and expressing oneself in a foreign language and on the role of trans­cultural writers in Italy. These essays complement and shed light on her fiction.

De Caldas Brito’s narrative is influenced by her interest in psychology and her practice as a psychotherapist. Some of her stories, in which emotions play an important role, have been inspired by her dreams. As she admitted in an interview, writing for her means giving free rein to her emotions, but unlike many transcultural writers, she is not interested in autobiographical narrative.

In her earliest stories she revealed great sensitivity for the condition of migrant women, whom she portrays as isolated in a domestic space. ‘Ana de Jesus’, for example, is the monologue of a Brazilian maid working in Italy, who feels lonely and is torn between her alienated life in Italy and her saudade for Brazil. However, even though de Caldas Brito represents many migrant characters with great empathy and understanding for their plight, she does not only deal with themes of migration, especially in her more recent works.

Some of her stories are characterized by a fantastic dimension in which the ‘uncanny’ plays an important role (‘L’orologio’, ‘In fondo all’occhio’, ‘Siamo felici così’). Her interest in such themes as madness or in literary strategies typical of the fantastic narrative tradition, such as moving from a familiar everyday dimension to an uncanny and inexplicable one, or body parts that detach themselves and act independently, is a legacy of Brazilian literature, in which fantastic aspects are used not to escape from reality but to unmask it. Her writing is characterized by a strongly critical view of society, which she combines harmoniously with her light style, in which irony and humour play an important role. A good example of de Caldas Brito’s use of fantasy and irony can be found in the short story ‘Io, polpastrello 5.423’, in which she expresses her opposition to the Bossi-Fini law, which required that migrants be fingerprinted. In this story, the fingertips separate from the bodies of their owners and invade the police station, creating great turmoil. 

Her most recent short stories continue to reveal her sense of humour. Among them ‘CORRISPONDENZA’ (2021) is particularly amusing in reworking the story of Biancaneve as a young woman eager to emancipate herself from a Prince Charming who wants to subdue her. This ironic and funny modern fairy tale shows once again the witty fantasy of this author. In this story, as in many of her works, de Caldas Brito reveals her interest in making the readers reflect on the human condition, and in particular the female condition, and using literature as a means to awaken consciences.

One of the most interesting aspects of de Caldas Brito’s narrative is her very creative use of Italian. Early linguistic innovations may be found in the stories ‘Ana de Jesus’ and ‘Olinda’, in which the female characters express themselves in a hybrid language that has been called ‘portuliano’. This is a kind of interlanguage, characterized by interference between Italian and Portuguese, that allows the author to portray these characters more realistically and, at the same time, to underline their condition of living between cultures. De Caldas Brito likes to play with words, probably influenced by the musicality of her mother tongue, which gives her great sensitivity to the sounds of the Italian language. Examples of her play on sounds and onomatopoeia can be found in several of her stories (‘Chi’, ‘Ià, la vecchia’, ‘Il volo’, ‘Tutti’, ‘Il battitasti’). A further example of her experimentation with language, inspired by the Lusophone writers João Guimarães Rosa and Mia Cuoto, is the condensation of words, with which she creates interesting neologisms that enrich the Italian language. The name of the protagonist of the short story ‘Maroggia’ illustrates this procedure, combining the words mare and pioggia. 

De Caldas Brito’s readership is not only Italian. Thanks to the translations of her stories, she has gained a reputation in the USA, Brazil, Türkiye, Austria, and Germany. She illustrates well how the cultural background of a transcultural writer can coexist with her new identity and enrich the literature of her adopted country.

Compiled by Maria Cristina Mauceri (Sydney)