Authors Caco Barcellos and Misha Glenny Speak Out in Defence of Their Work That Gives Voice to Drug Dealers

07/01/2016 - 11h18

Why can't we immortalise the lives of drug dealers in literature, and tell their stories the same way we do for politicians or businessmen?

This was one of the questions posed at a debate about journalism and drug-trafficking this Thursday (30) at the Flip (International Literary Festival of Paraty). Crowds had gathered to hear the world-renowned reporters Caco Barcellos and Misha Glenny discussing some of their work on the third day of the festival.

As the talk, which was compèred by the journalist Ivan Marsiglia, drew to a close, Barcellos and Glenny received a standing ovation from the enthusiastic audience that had turned out in swathes to see them speak.

Last September, Glenny, the British author and correspondent for "The Guardian" and the BBC, launched his book "Nemesis: One Man and the Battle for Rio", the biography of Nem, the infamous ex-gang lord from Rocinha, a favela in Rio de Janeiro.

Barcellos is the author of "Abused", a book that tells the tale of Marcinho VP, a drug-trafficker from another Rio favela, Santa Marta.

Barcellos spoke out against those who criticise him for profiling a trafficker. "It's as if they are suggesting traffickers are not human," he said. He argued that there was no difference between telling the stories of Nem and Marcinho VP and writing about people from a "white elite" involved in frauds, or a corrupt governor, for example.

"I think we have huge class-based prejudices," he said. "If the person in question is lower class, we deny him a voice. If he's part of an elite, we don't even call him a gangster, we call him a criminal. Or we say, ambiguously, 'He's committed a crime'."

Glenny said that he chose to make Nem the subject of his book because for five years the man held a truly remarkable position in the favela. "He acted in place of the State. He was the political authority, and the chief of cocaine. He was responsible for many people. And that's a story that nobody else is going to tell," he said.

Translated by GILLIAN SOPHIE HARRIS

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