The (un)intentional art of writing letters: Caio Fernando Abreu and the writing of the self

Abstract

The edition and publication of letters of writers have been intensified in the last decades. On one hand, this is due to the fact that the letters cause an impression of reality, thus constituting a way to rebuild the identity of great authors. On the other hand, by enabling the access to the writer’s universe the letters are valuable because they present themselves as a means of understanding the relationship between biography and work. However, we have to recognize that the letters are the discursive products of their authors, who use strategies in order to achieve certain effects of meaning. This article considers the letters as linguistic products, and based on the Lacanian theory, it investigates Caio Fernando’s process of identity creation from the compilation Letters. The intention is to demonstrate how, for the writer, the letters represent, on one hand, a kind of monopoly of his image, and on the other hand, according to the thought of Jacques Derrida, a way to subscribe himself to the literary history. In order to understand how the author builds an image of the self, this article examines the different strategies employed by the sender in order to create an “effect of reality”.