During the military dictatorship, editor Anio Silveira was stripped of his political rights. His books were collected, confiscated, and burned. His bookstore and publishing company, Civilização Brasileira, on Rio’s Calle Sete de Setembro, became the target of arson, bombings and economic strangulation. One of its main authors, Carlos Heitor Kony, was arrested six times by the regime. Anio managed to overcome this milestone by being arrested eight times on charges of “cultural destruction” and “communist propaganda.”
In his first interrogation, immediately after the 1964 coup, the interrogation centered on the source of his assets. The military believed that it was unthinkable to make a profit by publishing books on politics and social science in Brazil. They must have suspected that Enio was guaranteed what was then called “Moscow’s gold.” They didn’t know that his wealth was of a different kind: talent and business acumen.
The 100th anniversary of his birth took place on Tuesday (18th), and the history of his struggles and writings are described in the recently published biography Ênio Silveira: O Editor que Peitou a Ditadura, by fellow editor Sérgio França.
Discovered by Monteiro Lobato, he studied in the United States, interned with Alfred A. Knopf, learned the publishing trade, and assumed the roles of director of acquisitions and logistics, and text editor involved in design and marketing. Ideologically trained by the American Communist Party, he was a deranged suicidal in the eyes of his friend Jorge Zahar. He was able to produce the first complete version of Das Kapital in Japan, a direct translation from German, and at the same time hire an advertising agency to promote the release of Nabokov’s Lolita.
He once heard from Luis Carlos Prestes, “Now you have a publishing company.” Anio said, “No, that’s my publisher.” This explains why Kony’s novel Pesach: The Crossing, which accuses the PCB of treason, was published in opposition to this work. An unprecedented event in the world.
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