Interview--Errol Lincoln Uys

INTERVIEW
Errol Lincoln Uys

The new edition of your novel, Brazil, is being published by Silver Spring Books 15 years after the book?s first appearance. How did this come about?

This year marks the 500^th anniversary of modern Brazil, and it seemed a good idea to reissue the book. I approached a dozen mainstream publishers, but found no interest despite the novel?s huge success overseas. That?s where things may have ended without the Internet:

I belong to BookMarket, an email discussion list. I posted the same query letter about a new edition of Brazil to the group: Within 24 hours I got a reply from Silver Spring Books, a small independent house in Connecticut. Within a week, we hammered out a reprint agreement. Within four months, we took the book from manuscript to press.

How does the new edition differ from the old?

I have always believed that Brazil needed further editing, as was done by the editors in France, where the novel earned rave reviews from Le Figaro and L?Express, and was a runaway bestseller. The new edition also includes an Afterword that brings the story up to April 2000.

What is the driving passion behind the 800 pages of Brazil?

The remarkable history of Brazil and its people fired my imagination from the start. It is one of the great adventures in human history that has gone untold, lost in clich鳠and caricatures of Brazil, land of samba, soccer and carnival.

Could you share some details about your writing? How did you begin your career?

I wrote my first book at 10. It was 40 pages penned on the back of worthless stock certificates thrown out by my parents. At 16, I finished a full-length novel. I still have a slew of rejection slips for my effort. That manuscript landed me my first newspaper job when I included it with my application to work as a cub reporter on the Johannesburg Star. I spent the next 15 years as a reporter, feature writer and editor on newspapers and magazines in South Africa, England and the United States.

You worked with James A. Michener on his South African book, The Covenant. Is this when you got your break?

Yes. I left my birthplace and immigrated to the United States with my family. I had started work on a South African novel before coming here. When Michener and I met, it was clear that we were thinking along similar lines. I spent two years with him, including four months during which I lived at his Maryland home. We put our heads together on every aspect of the book, from the plotting to the final manuscript. -- What I gained above all was the faith that I could go out and write a vast historical novel like Michener.

Why did you choose ?Brazil? as your subject?

I came from South Africa where racism was entrenched. Brazil was a land where the races mixed from the beginning. I was personally drawn to find out why the Brazilian ?thing? was so different. I was also appalled to discover how little people in the United States knew about their biggest neighbor to the south. It was ? and sadly remains ? a lack of understanding similar to what proved disastrous for the different communities of South Africa.

How did you write Brazil?

I gave up my job as an editor at Reader?s Digest. I spent the next five years working on Brazil. I traveled 15,000 miles by bus to do my research in Brazil and then returned to the U.S. to begin writing. After a year?s work and with 200 pages in hand, I got an advance from Simon and Schuster. The original manuscript was 2,700 pages or three-quarters of a million words written in longhand on kid?s scribbling tablets. The hardcover edition was published in the U.S. in 1986.

What was your past experience with Brazil?

My editor left Simon and Schuster a month before the book appeared. It became what the industry calls an ?orphan? book. Six weeks after publication, I was told, ?Brazildidn?t take off and was dropped.? I had exactly one press interview and one radio interview before the book vanished from the shelves.

One year later, the novel was published in France, where it was the hit of summer 1987. Brazil had equal success with every overseas edition, including the United Kingdom, Germany, Holland, Israel and Brazil.

Back in the United States, I landed in the valley of lost writers, trapped between first novels and works-in-progress. What made it impossible to give up was the knowledge that I?d climbed the mountain twice before, once with James Michener and once alone. I finally got back into print in 1999, with my non-fiction work, Riding the Rails: Teenagers on the Move During the Great Depression.

What matters most to you about writing?

Whether I am writing fiction or non-fiction, I strive to understand, to feel and touch the lives of people I write about. It is a rare privilege that writers have. It is also a deep responsibility.