In a situation where Brazilian literature faces historical and contemporary challenges, a new report reveals an unexpected growth in sales of textbooks and religious books. But as the market adapts, a crucial question arises: are self-help books, which promise quick and practical solutions, really enriching the literary experience or just fueling a culture of superficiality?
In 2023, one of the highlights of the research “Production and Sales of the Brazilian Publishing Sector“, conducted by Snel (National Union of Book Publishers) and CBL (Brazilian Book Chamber), shows a positive nominal performance in sales to the Didactic and Religious market, with growth of 1.2% and 4.5% respectively.
Didactic books are a pedagogical resource used as a mean of knowledge to facilitate the learning of specific subjects. Within this context, there is the “self-improvement” genre, which, as the name suggests, aims to motivate and create strategies for the reader to apply and enhance certain aspects of life. This type of book can indeed be beneficial, but to what extent?
Historical context
In Brazillian history, literature has evolved through a twisted and plowed path. It arrived in Brazil with the Portuguese settlers, as the societies that lived here, such as the indigenous peoples, were agraphic and had no written representation.
Later on, only wealthy white men had access to formal education, while working individuals (vendors, employees, wage earners) weren’t prohibited from education, but lacked access to formal education or any kind of encouragement.
In 1878, women were granted permission to study beyond elementary education with written consent from their husbands or parents, and a year later, the presence of free black men over 14 years old was allowed.
Even with the existence of schools and “free” access to them, we still had high rates of illiteracy in the following century. This had to do with distance, as there were more schools in the city center, as well as issues of willingness or even availability of spots.
Consequently, we encountered a series of problems — conflicts in educational structuring and overcrowding in schools, poorly planned constructions and lack of support, deficiencies in the democratization of education and accessibility, and finally, a lack of structural incentives and future rewards.
According to the 2022 Demographic Census by the IBGE, literacy and illiteracy rates have been gradually decreasing in percentage terms. In 1970, around 33% of the Brazilian population was illiterate; today, that number is only 7%. Perhaps this means a greater appreciation for school education, which encourages literature. Despite this improvement, these burdens of decades of slow stimulation have not been erased from the habits of Brazilian society.
In summary, low incidence of literature had become a cultural parameter within the country. In the earlier period, more than half of the population could not read, and it became a matter of habit, as little reading was done at home, due to the lack of a family custom that from household to household.
Therefore, when situations like this arise, with a high incidence of self-improvement books, we must question: why does this happen?
Psychology, easy formulas and a new vision
Professor Welington Wagner Andrade from Cásper Líbero, who holds a degree in Literature with a master’s and doctorate in Brazilian Literature, answered the question.
“The publishing market has been in crisis since 1970 when readers began to have difficulty reading more complex messages. Great literature generally requires a reader more attentive to the complexity of the world and of literature itself. Thus, a kind of popularization of psychological concepts begins to emerge. Psychology invades mass communication. Consequently, a type of “guru” starts to appear, providing very practical teachings, very immediate, with overly practical resolutions to life situations“.
As a result, using this psychology through communication channels, writing strategies are employed to attract these individuals to continue reading, with the myth of the hero, the transgressive woman, the entrepreneur, asserts Welington. “People are always looking for models. Literature also works with the human experience, it also deals with the complexity of the human condition, but it does not do so through easy formulas; it is precisely through critical awareness, through self-knowledge of another nature“.
With the growth of social media, the new normal is to give opinions, whether they have any basis or not. This opens the door to a modern tragedy: the opinions of laypeople are seen as facts. Laws already exist and more are being created every day to regulate and control malicious speech and false facts, but uneducated people, without knowledge and proof of what is said, highlight the increase in anti-intellectualism.
According to Welington, “Social media is the way in which content is permeated by the ideology of facilitation, cheapening, and the degradation of thought. Social media does not deepen anything. They circulate; they have this seemingly inexhaustible capacity to circulate old things as if they were new, for example. It has the element of impact and a bit of the magical, the hysterical. The network creates an imperative need for us to be very euphoric. It is a euphoria that leads to nothing, because they accommodate very little text, they accommodate very little reflection; they do not provide support for the complex; they only support the superficial”.
As a result, can we say that literature is on borrowed time? “I don’t think so, because literature always has ways to reinvent itself. There is indeed a literature that is becoming obsolete” is Professor Andrade’s response.
The truth is that we are witnessing a new vision of literature. Just like after World War 1, or during the First Industrial Revolution or the Renaissance, it is creating new niches with themes that are more relevant to the moment we live in, but with writing and thoughts as interesting as the ancient texts that are still honored. Self-improvement books enter this context not as an object for denunciation, but as a warning.
There are books with more complex writing and structure than these, that can re-signify your world, that will make you reflect and think. We do not need a manual to live life; however, a good friend to walk with it are the books.
As stated by the interviewee: “Brazilian literature, feminist, indigenous, anti-racist, anti-homophobic, is vibrant and rich. It no longer has the impact it had as a cultural phenomenon, let’s say, important until the 20th century. Indeed, it has lost that. But I don’t believe it will die. It is coming out of the hospital, going through a process of convalescence, but I hope it survives“.
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The article above was edited by Isadora Mangueira.
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