Falando francamente: o futebol na visão dos escritores, nas Minas Gerais dos anos 1940

Abstract

In the second semester of 1949, the Folha de Minas Literária(Literary Minas Journal, a weekly “letters, sciences and arts” supplement published by important news paper Folha de Minas) published, generally on its last page, the column “Falando francamente” (“Speaking frankly”), in which journalist Walter Alvares would interview important literature personalities in Minas Gerais. At a certain point during the interview, among questions on writing habits and the state and national literary panorama, the journalist would ask the interviewee: “do you like football?”, and “which team do you like?” The interviews as a whole, and the answers to these questions by such names as Henriqueta Lisboa, Murilo Rubião, Emílio Moura and João Dornas Filho, offer a singular opportunity to investigate the way footballwas viewed by Brazilian writers and intellectuals at that time. The intent of this paper is, therefore, to make a preliminary analysisof this material, using as a background the reflections by Milton Pedrosa in his famous essay“O futebol na literatura brasileira” (“Footballin Brazilian Literature”, 1967), aiming at bringing about a wider discussion about the relationships between sports, culture and literature in Brazil.