The Write Up

The Write Up > All Episodes

May 24, 2016

The Write Up: Juliana Barbassa

By: Rebecca McInroy

In this episode of The Write Up, we talk with prizewinning journalist and nonfiction writer Juliana Barbassa about her book Dancing with the Devil in the City of God: Rio de Janeiro on the Brink depicting the beauty, crime, pressures, and violent paradoxes shaping Brazil’s most vibrant city.

Juliana Barbassa has lived and written all over the world. Born in Brazil, she has lived in Iraq, Spain, Malta, Libya, France, and the United States. As a journalist, her ability to dive in and find the human face in the most desperate of stories won her acclaim including the Katie Journalism Award, the emerging journalist of the year by the U.S.-based National Association of Hispanic Journalists, and the John L. Dougherty award by the Associated Press Managing Editors.

In 2003, Barbassa joined the Associated Press and returned to her home country of Brazil to be the Rio de Janeiro correspondent. There she found a city in the midst of massive growth and explosive change. Poverty and crime still plagued much of the city, but Rio was also enjoying an influx of new business and international attention. This attention increased when Rio won the hosting honors of the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympic Games. Rio now feels the pressure to grow into the ideal Brazilian city, at least in appearance, at an accelerated pace.

 

Barbassa’s book is not one of dry economics or global public relations. Instead Barbassa shares the narrative of a city and its people in the midst of radical transformation. She zooms in on the people and places that give Rio its complex character. We meet criminals and prostitutes, shopkeepers and mothers, police officers and children. Barbassa’s journalistic instincts drive her into heart of the story, often putting herself in mortal danger as police stand off with drug lords or raze impoverished neighborhoods to the ground.

Her own story of returning to Brazil and experiencing the tension pulling at Rio firsthand gives the book a memoiric thread. Her intense feelings for the city serve to enliven her excellent research.

On the Write Up we discuss her thirst for stories as a journalist, her willingness to investigate the darker narratives, and her struggle to care for herself, both physically and psychologically, while reporting on violence and brutality.

She also gives us insight as to how her life and career led her all over the world and eventually back to Brazil. And how her growing desire to explore the strange contradictions of Rio led to writing this book.

When talking with Barbassa, you sense the conflicting feelings she has for Rio. There’s a real love as she describes the smells and sights, and unflinching honesty as she chronicles the hardships of the disenfranchised city. She highlights the extremes of this incredible city where natural beauty and corruption both thrive. It is her ability to love the city as a local while also maintaining the critical distance of an investigator that gives this book such depth.


Episodes

July 2, 2017

Scott Westerfeld

Scott Westerfeld is a bestselling author of books for both children and adults best known for his young adult series Uglies and Leviathan. While on tour with his new graphic novel Spill Zone, Westerfeld spoke with The Write Up host Owen Egerton about monsters, collaboration, teenagers and storytelling. Westerfeld’s recent projects have embraced visual storytelling. From the stunning illustrations […]

Listen

May 24, 2017

Dan Chaon

Dan Chaon is the author of three short story collections. His short fiction has received multiple awards including publication in the Pushcart Prize Anthology, Best American Short Stories, The O. Henry Prize stories. Chaon’s first novel Await Your Reply was a national bestseller, and his second novel Among the Missing was a finalist for the […]

Listen

April 25, 2017

The Write Up: George Saunders

In this episode of The Write Up, Owen talks to George Saunders about craft, ecstatic empathy, and the afterlife in his new novel Lincoln in the Bardo.   George Saunders is an award winning and New York Times bestselling author of essays, short stories, novellas, and children’s books. His writing has appeared in The New Yorker, […]

Listen

May 24, 2016

The Write Up: Juliana Barbassa

In this episode of The Write Up, we talk with prizewinning journalist and nonfiction writer Juliana Barbassa about her book Dancing with the Devil in the City of God: Rio de Janeiro on the Brink depicting the beauty, crime, pressures, and violent paradoxes shaping Brazil’s most vibrant city. Juliana Barbassa has lived and written all […]

Listen

March 21, 2016

Amelia Gray

I’ve long been a fan of the beautifully dark and bitingly funny fiction of Amelia Gray. Her short story collections AM/PM, Museum of the Weird, and most recently Gutshot rank among my favorite books to pick up for a quick, smiling nightmare. Her novel Threats digs deeply into grief and melancholy, so deeply that the […]

Listen

March 21, 2016

C. Robert Cargill Live at SXSW 2016

Novelist, screenwriter, critic and slam poet C. Robert Cargill sits down with host Owen Egerton at SXSW 2016 to talk about coming up in Austin, the history of scary movies, and advising on the set of Dr. Strange.

Listen

January 25, 2016

Kirk Lynn

On this edition of The Write Up we chat with novelist, playwright, and professor Kirk Lynn about the craft of writing, the adventure of theater, and the deep desire to abandon society and escape into the wild. We also discuss his debut novel Rules for Werewolves. Lynn began writing prose in college, but found the […]

Listen

November 17, 2015

Ada Calhoun

Writer Ada Calhoun discusses her new book, “St. Marks Is Dead: The Many Lives of America’s Hippest Street,” with host Owen Egerton.

Listen