The author of “Loss & Gains” and “As parceiras” was fighting cancer
The writer from the Rio Grande do Sul, Lya Luft, died this Thursday (30), at the age of 83, in Porto Alegre. The death of the author, who was fighting skin cancer, was confirmed to GLOBO by family friends. Lya had been diagnosed with melanoma seven months ago. Discovered already in a metastatic state, the cancer was already affecting other organs.
Lya was admitted to Hospital Moinhos de Vento, in Porto Alegre, but was discharged on December 21st. GLOBO learned that the family intends to say goodbye to the writer in a private ceremony.
Author of 31 titles, such as “O quarto fechado”, “As Parceiros” and “O Rio do Meio”, Lya was, for years, a columnist for Veja magazine. Currently, he wrote for the Rio Grande do Sul newspaper, Zero Hora. The writer was the widow of the dictionary writer Celso Luft, author of the dictionary that bears her last name.
Lya published her first book in 1964, the poem anthology “Liminar Songs”. In 1972, she released another book of poetry, “Flute recorder”. He debuted in prose in 1978 with a volume of short stories: “Materia do everyday”, published by Nova Fronteira. Encouraged by editor Pedro Paulo Sena Madureira, she turned to the novel and, in 1980, launched “As Parceiros”, in which the narrator Anelise finds herself dealing with the ghosts of her grandmother, aunts, sister, and friend, and with her own family history, marked by madness.
The following year, he published “A left-wing of the angel”, which follows the daughter of a strict German family in southern Brazil. Among the author’s other titles are the novels “Family reunion” and “Exile”, the poetic anthology “The fatal side” and “Perdas & Damages”, a mix of memory and essay that camped more than a hundred weeks on the bestseller list and was taken to the stage by actress Nicette Bruno . Last year, she launched the “Human Things” chronicle rally. Written under the impact of the death of her son André, the book was a finalist for the Jabuti Prize. The author’s works are published by Grupo Editorial Record.
In 1996, the unclassifiable “O rio do Meio” was awarded by the São Paulo Association of Art Critics (APCA). In 2001, Lya received the Prize for Scientific and Technical Translation in Portuguese Language (FCT/União Latina) when she translated into Portuguese the book “Lete: arte e critique do forgetmento”, by the German philologist Harald Weinrich. In 2013, the novel “O tigre na Sombra” won the prize of the Brazilian Academy of Letters (ABL).
Lya’s friend, writer Cintia Moscovich told GLOBO that Brazil is losing one of its greatest active novelists.
“Lya was a beautiful novelist, a beautiful thinker. It is part of the great collection of Brazilian literature, which she only added to. She was an ironic, cynical, and a very human narrator who built memorable female characters with vigor, strength, and depth. Perverse like Nelson Rodrigues, she knew how to work the intricate and vindictive game of family relationships very well.
On Instagram, the writer and columnist for GLOBO Martha Medeiros said that she has been a fan of Lya since reading “As Parceiros”. When they met in person, the writer won the book “Women who run like wolves” (a best-seller that makes an apology for the female ancestral force), as if the title were a “passport to a brotherhood of thinking authors”. “I’ve been with her a few times and never left our conversations empty-handed, she always had a positive word and an irreverence to offer,” Martha wrote. “When her son André died, I went to her. Beside the coffin, she looked at me and said, in that way without mincing words: ‘Martha, death is shit.’ It’s true, Lya.”
In a note, Sonia Machado Jardim, president of Grupo Editorial Record, recalled that “Lya was a writer of enormous sensibility”, whose words “always impacted her readers, bringing reflection and wisdom”. “Brazil is losing one of its greatest thinking minds”, he lamented. Also in a note, the Riff Agency, which represented the author, stated that “her work remains, as an extension of her life, so that we do not forget her legacy”.
In her writings for the press, Lya often exposed her political positions. The writer scandalized the intellectual milieu by claiming that she had voted for Jair Bolsonaro. She tried to justify herself by saying that she chose Pocketnarism “for lack of anything better” and regretted it. Lya even bought the Bolsonaro government from a “white dictatorship.”
Amelia Warner
Amelia Warner writes all the Latest Articles. She mostly covers Entertainment topics, but at times loves to write about movie reviews as well.
