On the evening of Saturday, August 29, Mia Couto and Míriam Leitão closed the national program of the 4th Fliparacatu, the International Literary Festival of Paracatu, held in Minas Gerais, Brazil, between August 26 and 30. The event celebrated the 70th anniversary of the publication of "Grande Sertão: Veredas" by João Guimarães Rosa, and featured as patrons of the edition the writer himself and geographer Milton Santos, on the centenary of his birth. The conversation, mediated by journalist Jamil Chade, who is based in Geneva, addressed the relationship between territory and identity, language as a way of understanding the other, and the crossing as a transformative experience. Minister Cármen Lúcia, initially scheduled to participate, was unable to attend due to an unforeseen circumstance.
Míriam Leitão shared her concrete experience of traveling to places such as Serra das Araras, Ribeirão da Areia, and the Grande Sertão: Veredas National Park to produce an in-depth report for the GloboNews channel, seeking to understand the universe that Guimarães Rosa transformed into literature. Mia Couto, a reader of the Minas Gerais writer's work, stated that "Grande Sertão: Veredas" contains a language that goes beyond what is simply said, and that it is necessary to learn to listen to what the words do not directly express.
During the debate, Jamil Chade recalled Guimarães Rosa's trajectory as a diplomat in Germany during the years preceding and spanning World War II, when the writer, alongside his wife Aracy de Carvalho, helped Jews persecuted by the Nazi regime obtain visas to leave the country. From this human dimension of Rosa, the participants reflected on what the work still teaches, with Míriam highlighting that "he listened to the sertão" and that Guimarães Rosa transformed the language of the sertanejo (backlands inhabitant) into material for invention, thought, and poetry, not treating it as something lesser or peripheral.
The festival, organized by the Associação Cultura Sempre um Papo under the coordination of Afonso Borges, reached its fourth edition consolidated as one of the main literary festivals in Brazil. Since its debut in 2023, Fliparacatu has been seen as a hub for cultural exchange and critical thinking in the interior of Minas Gerais. The free program featured accessibility in Libras (Brazilian Sign Language) and live streaming on YouTube, including debates, the Essay and Drawing Prize for students, and an outdoor exhibition featuring works by painter Alberto da Veiga Guignard. At the end of the event, composer Celso Adolfo took the stage with his guitar to perform songs inspired by the universe of Guimarães Rosa, with Jamil Chade accompanying on the transverse flute.
