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The Brazilian writer, critic and translator

Julián Fuks was born in São Paulo, and

is the author of three novels, a short-story

collection and a children’s book. His last

novel, A Resistência (Resistance), won Brazil’s

Jabuti prize for Best Novel of the Year 2016.

Describe your time with your mentor,

the Mozambican writer Mia Couto.

I think, from the moment we met, Mia and

I have been carrying on a conversation,

and it has been a very long and pleasant one.

Many times we changed the backdrop – first

Maputo, then the Azores, São Paulo, Lisbon,

London – and with the scenery some of

our ideas might have changed as well. In the

beginning I talked a lot about what I intended

to do throughout this year; I had the

opportunity to explore in detail the reasons

behind my fiction projects, past and future.

Then we slowly shifted the conversation

to something closer to doubts and fears, the

inevitable hesitations in every literary work

in progress. After a while I started sending

Mia my new writings, for his very wise

and precise interventions. And Mia has been

generous enough to send me the manuscripts

of the trilogy he has been writing, sharing

with me his own doubts and hesitations.

What have you been working on over

the last year?

I have been writing a new novel entitled

The Occupation, an autofictional work

that in a way follows up my previous novel,

Resistance – occupying and resisting have

become fundamental acts in the times

we live in, and fundamental material for

contemporary literature. Though it may take

another year until I write the last line, the

novel will have a collaborative aspect: it will

contain letters to Mia Couto exploring the

creative process (in a fictional manner,

of course), and perhaps a letter from him.

How would you sum up the Rolex scheme?

Despite the common myth of the antisocial

artist, no one produces art in total silence

and isolation. The exchange of ideas and

impressions is crucial to any creative process,

and this, in the most fecund circumstances,

is what the Rolex programme provides.

A Resistência is published in Portuguese by

Companhia das Letras and will be published in

English by Charco Press in 2018

JULIÁN FUKS

Mentor: Mia Couto

LITERATURE

GUIDING

LIGHTS

PHOTOGRAPHY: YANN RABANIER WRITER: CHRISTOPHER STOCKS

Bringing together leading artists, writers, architects, musicians,

filmmakers and other creative luminaries with the brightest

young stars in their field, the Rolex Mentor and Protégé

programme is an ambitious cultural exchange. Following on

from our story in the November 2017 issue, three of the latest

protégés reveal what mentoring has meant to them

Fuks in his São Paulo

apartment, with a view

of Jardins. Around him

are treasures including

engravings by Brazilian

artist Renina Katz

(left) and Argentinian

artist León Ferrari

(right), books by Clarice

Lispector and Machado

de Assis, among others,

drafts of his novels and

family photo albums

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