A 2022 LARB Publishing Fellow, Eraldo Souza dos Santos is a Brazilian writer based between Paris and São Paulo. He will join Cornell University as a Klarman Fellow this summer and UC Irvine as an Assistant Professor within the Poetic Justice Cluster in Summer 2025. His first book, to be published in 2025, is an autobiography of his illiterate mother and a meditation on the lived experience of Blackness and enslavement in modern Brazil. At the age of seven, his mother was sold into slavery by her white foster sister. It was 1968—eighty years after the abolition of slavery in Brazil and four years into the anti-communist coup d’état, during the month in which the military overruled the Constitution by decree. By weaving in extensive archival research and interviews, the novel narrates their journey to Minas Gerais—where she was born—and Bahia—the Blackest state in Brazil, where she was enslaved for three years—to investigate why the family that enslaved her has never been brought to justice. It also narrates his grandmother’s journey to search for her missing daughter.

Writing about race and racism is challenging. And yet, the opportunities we, as writers, have to discuss such challenges are, despite considerable progress, scarce.

This workshop is designed as a safe space to help, encourage, and inspire writers whose projects deal with experiences of race and racism. We will explore together literary works that deal with colonialism, imperialism, displacement, migration, enslavement, and war.

Through writing prompts and exercises, we will also discuss how to face experiences such as (self-)censorship, (historical) trauma, and racial prejudice in the publishing industry.

COURSE TEXTS:

Assigned readings will include works by James Baldwin, Aimé Césaire, Audre Lorde, Toni Morrison, Celeste Ng, Viet Thanh Nguyen, and Edward Said, among others.

COURSE OUTLINE:

Class 1: Beyond the White Gaze

Class 2: Overcoming Self-Censorship

Class 3: The Persistence of Historical Trauma

Class 4: Getting Published in a White World

COURSE TAKEAWAYS:

• You will have the opportunity to produce at least four short pieces based on writing exercises proposed throughout the workshop.
• You will receive written feedback for the pieces you will produce during the workshop and for one of the pieces you may want to produce independently.
• You will have the opportunity to workshop your pieces with the other workshop participants as well as with me in a one-on-one consulting session.
  

TESTIMONIALS:

This was a brilliant workshop! I really enjoyed the mixed approach of tasks, reading & discussion, and I came away with some amazing new thoughts & insights. Thank you so much! -UEA Creative Writing Course, MA Prose Fiction

I was in Eraldo’s Lounge Writers session on writing autobiographies. Eraldo selected excellent readings and discussed them closely, inviting our questions and comments. I really appreciated the balance between thorough examination of content and concepts and hands-on exercises on autobiography. Eraldo shared his extensive knowledge of world literature, literary criticism, and history in ways that contextualized the readings and provided a useful framework for the participants to contextualize the autobiographies they may want to write. I left this relatively short session with a deeper and broader understanding of the concepts covered. Eraldo is a generous, engaging, and enthusiastic instructor. I look forward to learning more from him in future sessions. -Lounge Writers

Eraldo is brilliant, current, and analytical. His course content was endless -- in that beyond what was covered in class, Eraldo exposed us to new worlds in literature that we go forward to pursue independently, a sort of limitless virtual classroom. Eraldo's presentation/material is marvelously thought-provocative. He never talked down to the class while he consistently elevated our knowledge base. I consider it an honour to have studied w/ him and hope to do so again in the future. -Former Student

The workshop was agile and engaging, where Eraldo Souza dos Santos shared his knowledge and encouraged everybody to participate. The writers and books he recommended to us (so hard to find alone in a bookstore) were precisely what I was looking for to pursue my project. Thanks! -Center for Fiction

"Content and instructor were harmonious. Examples and discussion opened up a new world to me as an author. Your teaching style is very grounded, open, inviting, warm, personal, literate, intellectual." -Former Student

"It must be said... that you are a wonderful, clear in purpose and delivery, teacher." -Former Student

ONLINE COURSE STRUCTURE: