Miriam Aparecida Alves is a Brazilian writer, activist and poet of African descent.
Biography
She was born in São Paulo, and began writing at the age of eleven after she bought herself her first typewriter at eighteen. She earned a degree in Social Work and worked as a social worker for the city of São Paulo. Her writings mostly covered race and gender issues, including the European beauty standard in Brazil and women's roles in the social construct. She was inaugurated into the Municipal School for Professor Miriram Alves of Macedo Guimaraes in March 2016.
Miriam Alves had a difficult time publishing her work due to the closed off atmosphere Brazil contained toward Afro-Brazilian writers. Her works not only showcased her activist role against the racial divide but also emphasized the experiences she faces as Afro-Brazilian woman. Her poems and short stories have been included in a number of anthologies, including Axé - Antologia Contemporânea da Poesia Negra Brasileira , Razão da Chama and Moving Beyond Boundaries, International Dimension of Black Women's Writing . Her work has also appeared in the literary journal Callaloo. Alves was a member of Quilombhoje, a group of black writers who published a series of anthologies Cadernos negros from 1980 to 1989. She was an editor for the bilingual volume Enfim...Nos, Finally...Us, which was the first work to be published by an Afro-Brazilian after Quarto de Espejo by Three Continents Press. This book was a collaboration of poems from eighteen different Afro-Brazilian women. She also edited Escritoras Negras Brasileiras Contemporaneas and Contemporary Black Brazilian Women Writers, published in 1995. Her works have been translated to English and German. Two collections of her poems have been published: Momentos de busca and Estrelas no dedo . Momentos de Busca was a collection piece made from all of her poems from her adolescence to then. Her other works include: Brazilian Women Writers: Dual Brazilian-English Poetry Anthology, published in Colorado, USA and "Women Righting - Afro-Brazilian Women's Short Fiction", Short stories. She was co-author with Arnaldo Xavier and Cuti of a play Terramara. Along with other books like Brasilafro Autorrevelado and Mulher Matiz in 2011.
Poem
"Birth" A deaf drumming hurts to hear To live to live trapped in the cage female bird I've already seen the infinite I was constellation Now I'm a wandering asteroid shooting star I divided myself in two Divided in order to not be subtracted I stayed whole if dented in each piece I cried because I was being born