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Regina, Ivan Carlos

Entry updated 31 July 2023. Tagged: Author.

(1953-    ) Brazilian author of short experimental sf. His first professionally published story was "Pode acontecer com você na noite de Natal" ["It May Happen to You on Christmas Eve"], in Gumercindo Rocha Dorea's original anthology Enquanto houver Natal ... ["As Long as There Is Christmas ..."] (anth 1989).

In 1988 Regina published his "Manifesto Antropofágico da Ficção Científica Brasileira" ["Brazilian Science Fiction Cannibal Manifesto"] in the fanzine Somnium (June 1988). This was a pastiche of the Brazilian Modernist Oswald de Andrade's famous "Cannibal Manifesto" (1928) – which argued that Brazil's "cannibalization" of other cultures was its greatest strength – but Regina was quite critical of mindless imitation of Anglo-American sf and blind acceptance of Clichés. He got a few adherents at the time: fans and writers Cesar Silva, Fábio Fernandes, Marcello Simão Branco, Roberto de Sousa Causo, Roberto Schima, and, more recently, Braulio Tavares. The manifesto opened Regina's story collection O fruto maduro da civilização ["The Ripe Fruit of Civilization"] (coll 1993), also published by Dorea.

Regina never debated the substantial flack he draw with the manifesto, claiming it should be read as literature and judged as such. Accordingly, some of his responses came as story-cum-manifestos such as his "O caipora caipira" ["The Hick Caipora"] (in O fruto maduro da civilização coll 1993), in which Andrade's idea of cultural cannibalism is enacted by a supernatural being of Native Brazilian folklore who eats up foreign Technology and commercial franchises to regurgitate patches of rainforest and mystical attitudes. The initially-named Supernova Movement, more usually known as Movimento Antropofágico da Ficção Científica Brasileira ["Cannibal Movement of Brazilian SF"], was Brazil's very first conceptual – not editorial – movement in sf, and became characteristic of the Second Wave of Brazilian sf running from 1981 to the present.

"O caipora caipira" is the closest Regina has written to "tupinipunk", a local satirical Cyberpunk also heavily influenced by Brazilian Modernist ideas. It is ironic that the true realization of Regina's formalistic and experimental recipe for a self-conscious Brazilian sf would come from contemporaries such as Alfredo Sirkis with the novel Silicone XXI (1985), Fausto Fawcett with the novel Santa Clara Poltergeist (1991), and Guilherme Kujawski with the novella Piritas siderais: romance cyberbarroco (1994), who shared generational attitudes and influences but never read Regina's manifesto or stories.

The stories in O fruto maduro da civilização are daring, outlandish, comic, aphoristic, and experimental but sometimes awkwardly written. Yet the mix of awkward prose and experimentation often translates into powerful poetic texts such as the title story of the book, later included in Os Melhores Contos Brasileiros de Ficção Científica: Fronteiras ["Best Brazilian Short Stories: Borders"] (anth 2010), an anthology edited by Roberto de Sousa Causo. Another example, the mystical "Ananda, o homem que purpurava" ["Ananda, the Man Who Purpled"] (in O fruto maduro ...) reveals the impact of the 1960s counterculture that Regina would express again in the more elegantly written "Rosa-dos-ventos de luz" ["Compass Rose Made of Light"] (in Estranhos contatos: um panorama da ufologia em 15 narrativas extraordinárias ["Strange Encounters: An Overview of Ufology in 15 Extraordinary Narratives"], anth 1988, ed Causo), about a UFO cult community.

Other Regina stories appeared in local Semiprozines such as Somnium and Hipertexto, and in Anthologies such as Marcello Branco's Outras copas, outros mundos ["Other Cups, Other Worlds"] (anth 1997), about football (soccer) and sf (see Games and Sports), and Alfredo Franz Keppler Neto's Vinte voltas ao redor do Sol ["Twenty Turns Around the Sun"] (anth 2005) – in the last, Regina's story "MOMA: Minha Organização Mundial de Animais" ["MWAO: My World Animal Organization"] shows Aliens in a First Contact demanding the formation of an animal UN, and animals giving inaugural speeches in biblical language.

Regina is basically a short story writer with a small but unique production. In most cases, his stories are disturbing (sometimes moralizing) indictments of modernity, in a very particular form of Brazilian sf that betrays the influences of Philip K Dick, Robert Sheckley, and J G Ballard, along with the Brazilian Modernists. [RSC]

Ivan Carlos Regina

born Bauru, State of São Paulo, Brazil: 15 March 1953

works (selected)

  • O fruto maduro da civilização ["The Ripe Fruit of Civilization"] (São Paulo, Brazil: Edições GRD, 1993) [coll: pb/]
  • "Rosa-dos-ventos de luz" ["Compass Rose Made of Light"] in Estranhos contatos: um panorama da ufologia em 15 narrativas extraordinárias ["Strange Encounters: An Overview of Ufology in 15 Extraordinary Narratives"] (São Paulo, Brazil: Caioá Editora, 1988) edited by Roberto de Sousa Causo [anth: pp210-214: pb/]
  • "MOMA: Minha Organização Mundial de Animais" ["MWAO: My World Animal Organization"] in Vinte voltas ao redor do Sol ["Twenty Turns Around the Sun"] (São Paulo, Brazil: Clube de Leitores de Ficção Científica, 2005) edited by Alfredo Franz Keppler Neto. [anth: pp3-20: pb/]

about the author

  • Braulio Tavares. "Antropofagia na Ficção Científica". (2012 Metáfora: Literatura e Cultura 1:5) [pp50-52: mag/]
  • Karen Vasquez. "Brazilian Cyberpunk and the Latin American Neobarroque: Political Critique in a Globalized World". (2012 Luso-Brazilian Review 49:1) [pp208-224: mag/]

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