Pan-Amazonian Book Fair opens this Saturday with programming dedicated to honorees

This Saturday (16), at 9 am, the Hangar Convention Center of the Amazon, in Belém, opens its doors for the largest literary fair in Northern Brazil. Held by the Government of Pará, through the State Secretariat of Culture (Secult), the 28th Pan-Amazonian Book and Multivoices Fair honors Mestre Damasceno and Wanda Monteiro, references of Pará culture that bring poetry, music, and popular culture into the spotlight, affirming the commitment to safeguard the traditional knowledge and practices of the people of Pará.

The opening program at the Multivoices Arena will be dedicated to the “Voices of Poetics and Enchantment,” in reference to the honorees of this edition. Among the attractions are conversations with Wanda Monteiro and Guto Nunes, producer of Mestre Damasceno, artistic interventions, a monologue, a procession with the Búfalo-Bumbá, a documentary screening, and musical shows with Marajoara artists.

Mestre Damasceno brilliantly unites various artistic elements. Born in 1954, in the Quilombola Community of Salvá, in Salvaterra, in the Marajó archipelago, Damasceno is a reference in carimbó, toadas, and oral poetry. The producer and businessman Guto Nunes, representing the master, comments on the composer's work.

“Mestre Damasceno was really very happy with the invitation to be honored at the book fair, which comes to crown an entire trajectory he has been achieving thanks to his way of speaking, of expressing himself, which is not literature laid down on paper, traditional, but is the literature of orality, it is the history of orality,” he says.

With Marajoara art, from musicality to elements of theater, Damasceno manages to unite artistic languages that have resulted in over 400 compositions, which sing the living memory of a people. Among his greatest achievements is the creation of the Búfalo-Bumbá of Salvaterra, blending June festivities, popular theater, quilombola culture, and elements of the Amazonian nature.

In May of this year, he received the Order of Cultural Merit (OMC), the highest honor granted by the Ministry of Culture — a well-deserved recognition for his trajectory of resistance and art.

On the other hand, Wanda Monteiro presents the power of a sensitive writing. Born in 1958, in the municipality of Alenquer, in western Pará, she is the daughter of the renowned writer Benedicto Monteiro and shows that she inherited the vocation for writing.

She has built a solid career with texts and books that present the voice of a woman who was born within the river, in the heart of the forest, whose worldview is rooted in the cosmogony of being an Amazonian.

Releases – This year, the State Secretariat of Culture (Secult) is launching three works. Authored by Wanda Monteiro, Poesia Reunida brings published and unpublished texts, which the writer defines as governed by the flow of her inner river.

“Throughout all this time I dedicated myself to writing, I never had this welcome and care in the process of editing a book as I had from the entire editorial team of the Department of Editing and Memory – DEM. This book was organized under the emotion of being honored by my State and having my literary work recognized and valued by Secult. Therefore, it was made with a feeling of gratitude,” narrates Wanda.

In addition to this, the title O Homem Rio – A saga de Miguel dos Santos Prazeres, by Benedicto Monteiro, will also be relaunched, with a special edition in honor of the author's centenary, celebrated in 2024.

Dedicated to Mestre Damasceno, the work Mestre Damasceno e as Cantorias do Marajó, by Antonio Carlos Pimentel Jr., with illustrations by Mandy Modesto, will also be launched. The book presents life stories and invites the reader to know the culture of Marajó in a sensitive and accessible way, especially to the youth audience.

The book launches will take place this Saturday, at 3 pm, at the Hangar, with a symbolic ceremony of delivery to the honorees of this edition. The books will be sold at the Author's Point, at the 28th Pan-Amazonian Book and Multivoices Fair, at the Hangar. Admission is free, from 9 am to 10 pm, with entry until 9 pm.

Service:
28th Pan-Amazonian Book and Multivoices Fair
Date: August 16 to 22
Hours: 9 am to 10 pm (entry until 9 pm)
Location: Hangar Convention Center of the Amazon – Av. Dr. Freitas, s/n, Marco, Belém
Free entry

Text by Juliana Amaral / Ascom Secult