Listening to literary journalists talk about their craft: Excerpts from four interviews

It is going to be nine years this December since I delivered my PhD thesis on Portuguese literary journalism. And yet, before embarking on this academic endeavour, I had been unsure about the way to talk about literary journalism. I had read the foundational theorists, national and international, and was confident that I had a solid idea of what literary journalism was. I had also worked on Portuguese literary journalism during my Master’s thesis, and I believed that there was a possibility of creating the grounds for a historiography of the craft (which I attempted to do in my PhD thesis and in papers in the years that followed). And yet, I felt that I needed some humility about the whole thing. Indeed, I felt that reading the theorists and scholars of this field and contrasting them with Portuguese literary journalists was not enough to talk about the craft. At least not in a manner that I felt confident about.

And so, I decided that beyond reading the literary journalists’ work, I could profit from listening to them. And If I listen to them I could, in a sense, read them with the hindsight of getting a better semblance of what they meant. I believed, and I still do to this day that by hearing literary journalists talk about their work, I could then get closer to understanding their challenges, their narrative choices and what made their voice stand out. This proposition seemed reasonable (as long as I was talking about living authors, that is), and so I decided that I would make this a key component of my PhD thesis. To achieve this, I chose four contemporary Portuguese literary journalists, read their work, and set about interviewing them. To conduct these interviews and to understand what type of insights I was aiming for, I had two books as an influence for my script of questions: The New New Journalism (2005) by Robert S. Boynton and Telling True Stories (2007) by Mark Kramer and Wendy Call.

While this experience is something I look back on with some nostalgia, the end result, however, seems a bit out of place. Some of my questions reveal more about my naivety than the authors’ work. (What was I thinking when I asked them what type of journalism they did? Was I expecting them to say, “literary journalism” instead of the more aptly “I do journalism”?) Still, I think I learned something in the process, and I have been doing interviews to other literary journalists ever since. Looking back, I believe there are some insightful answers which I will now share with you. The following are excerpts of these interviews, taken from my thesis (with some minor changes for fluidity, including grammatical errors). The thesis was written in English, although the interviews were conducted in Portuguese and then translated into English. I transcribed the full interviews and included it in the thesis annexes. The thesis is available online under the title 21st Century Literary Journalism: Narrative Techniques and the Concept of Plot and Hero (2018).

–When interviewing Susana Moreira Marques, I asked her about what got reader’s attention:

I do not think there is something specific. I think that maybe what I most look for, not just when I write but also when I read, I think is a “strong form”, a formal idea, if you will. I think that a text must have, besides that idea of content – you have “this” to say, you have this story to tell, this idea to transmit, these voices – you have to have an idea of form, an idea of content, an idea of language, if you will. For me this is important, for me to find something that gives this form so that I can inform on these stories – you know? To have a strong form that allows for a conducting idea that operates as a transformation. For me this is important.

As a reader I think that one of the things that captures me deeply is also the voice, perhaps not just the voice of the characters, but also the narrator’s voice; if it crisscrosses with the voice of the characters. The narrator’s voice does not mean that there is always a need for an “I” and that I need to be telling my personal story also; but there is this reaching a tone that brings intimacy, an intimacy that creates a relationship with a place or with the characters or with the narrator himself. A relationship of intimacy with what we are sharing. A relationship with the person that is writing to us. As a reader I end up feeling that something is being shared with me and that in some way that is intimate.

-When interviewing Paulo Moura, I asked him if long-form was his preferred format to do journalism:

More and more, that. Longer narratives are what I think is worth doing. But that also has to do with my personal path. I do not think that news or the journalists that look for pure information and giving information in a quicker format should disappear. I do not think that that should disappear, as that is useful and it must continue to exist. I personally – this also has to do with my age and the fact that I left daily publications already with the objective of becoming a freelancer – I am not that connected to daily newspapers and the news. What I hope to do is great articles and publishing in magazines or in books, mostly books, which I think is one of the mediums where “this” journalism can be done, in the sense that I am attributing to it with long and literary texts. Book form is more and more a support. Books, as of now, have proved that they survive better than newspapers and magazines. That is, paper newspapers are practically condemned; it was already realized that they will not survive. It was thought that book form was condemned but it is not. In fact, it is funny because there was this period where e-books, the electronic books and the Kindle, etc.; were selling so well or better than paper books. And then there was this kickback on paper books. People realized that even younger generations want to read a book; they prefer to read on paper. People realized that book form is not something we are ready to give up.

-When interviewing Tiago Carrasco, I asked him about what literary techniques he felt captivated readers:

I have a hard time, for example, in being motivated to read a longer article that does not fascinate me in a literary way. I will read it because I am curious, but I think that for most readers a longer article on the Panama Papers, for example, is tough. Either you are really interested in it or you get to a quarter of the article and you are bored. You are talking about money, about leaking, how they hid it, technical terms: it is complicated. A longer article that really fascinates me is an article that I am reading and it looks like I am reading a book. Why? Because it transports me, it makes me understand while dreaming, putting me in other people’s skin. Therefore, what I like most on a longer article is, right away, that it begins in such a way that grabs me, with an action, with a long and well-done description of a place or characters. With a very strong situation which is exemplary and introductory of what you are going to read next.

I like stories where the character does not appear with just one name. When there is a description of the individual, of the interlocutor, of the interviewee: where he lives, details while you are doing the interview, if something happened; something that, out of nowhere, can capture you and goes towards the conversation you are having with the interviewee – you know? There is an object, a piece of his clothing that he/she did not even need to talk about, that it tells almost everything about what he/she believes. To pay attention to these things. If we are talking to… For example, I interviewed a while ago a sicario, a mercenary that had murdered people, and I looked upon his speech on what was left unsaid: the look, the phrases he stopped saying midway for you to interpret. That is the part that goes towards that objectivity or lack of objectivity, you as an interlocutor have to have that interpretation.

While I am having this conversation with you, we are both analyzing one another and when we get out of here the opinion we have of one another is also based on what I did not say, on the gestures that I did. Sometimes it is not only what I say – its content – which is part of the description that you are going to do, but all the other little things. And I like it when a journalist goes for that type of details. And this is something much more personal: I like it when the journalist goes outside the box, when he does not stick just to the conventional work in which you go and meet that particular source. I like it when, in a narrative, the journalist left everything at home and went out to drink a glass at night and suddenly a perfect environment for a reportage appears. And he does not need to hide that it happened during his/her night out. No, that happened in a rotten place, and I met this guy who gave that spectacular information or that guy had this connection with the rebels’ faction and he is going to introduce you to them the next day.

Being honest in the way things happened. And, sometimes, it is not like journalists are dishonest, but they do not talk about this. They omit it and then in the article they appear already speaking with someone else. I think that these details outside the box give a spectacular tone to reportages because it shows that the reporter was not only focused on who his/her subject was, but that he/she also went out to know the place where they live. Where do the people go, the restaurant, what do they eat, where do they go out afterwards, getting to know people that are not a part of the reportage, but who offer you ideas. Having conversations with intellectuals from there, from that country. So, I like these elements on stories. I think it gives personality to the article.

-When interviewing Alexandra Lucas Coelho, I asked about her emotional involvement in a story:

Involved, I always get involved because otherwise I would not be doing an article. If I had no curiosity for it, then I would be unable to do it. So, there is always an involvement. It varies a lot… In some cases, the involvement is so much that it becomes difficult to control – you know? When there is a strong emotional calling, sometimes it is difficult. It is important to have “self-control” a little bit. Yes, I can remember several moments. For example: being in Mexico and being with people that were abused, raped, beaten, kidnapped, abducted; suffered through all that you can imagine and are treated like garbage. My connection with those people will not be the same if I was there with a policeman, for example. There is an empathy that you establish naturally with people suffering, with people that are absolutely vulnerable – you know? – and still they are there talking to you. It is completely impossible that the relationship with these people is not an empathic relationship.

This does not mean that we become these victims. That we should not do. But if I believe that we are a little bit the body of the reader, the body in every sense, then in that dimension, that empathy, the way we become a little vulnerable also – “see-through”, letting us become affected by it – then I think that is also something that we are doing to the reader, that we are taking to the reader. Letting ourselves get through that emotion. It is a way to transport that emotion from our body to the reader. I believe that. Do it with modesty. With modesty because we should not treat this like it is a big thing or by exploring this dimension of pain of these people. There I think we should really be careful.