From novels and memoirs to poems and essays, family life is one of the main motives of literary writing. But it is perhaps a truism to say that writing about family is not easy. As Leo Tolstoy famously wrote at the beginning of Anna Karenina, “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” That is what I have learned since I decided to start writing about how my mother was sold into slavery by her adoptive sister five and a half decades ago.

For three days, we will explore in this workshop how writers from different historical periods and traditions wrote about (their) families – and how we can do so today. We will read, study, and find inspiration in writings by James Baldwin, Simone de Beauvoir, Ingrid Rojas Contreras, Annie Ernaux, Didier Eribon, Toni Morrison, and Ocean Vuong. Participants will have the opportunity to workshop their pieces and receive feedback in the second and third sessions of the workshop.

About the instructor

A 2022 LARB Publishing Fellow, Eraldo Souza dos Santos is a Brazilian writer currently based between Paris and São Paulo. His first novel, to be published in 2024, is an autobiography of his illiterate mother and a meditation on the lived experience of Blackness and enslavement in modern Brazil. At the age of seven, his mother was sold into slavery by her white foster sister. It was 1968—eighty years after the abolition of slavery in Brazil and four years into the anti-communist coup d’état, during the month in which the military overruled the Constitution by decree. By weaving in extensive archival research and interviews, the novel narrates their journey to Minas Gerais—where she was born—and Bahia—the Blackest state in Brazil, where she was enslaved on a farm for three years—to investigate why the family that enslaved her has never been brought to justice. It also narrates his grandmother’s journey to search for her missing daughter. In March 2023, he offered a masterclass based on his novel at the prestigious UEA Creative Writing Course. You can keep up with Eraldo on Twitter at @esdsantos.

Student Testimonials

This was a brilliant workshop! I really enjoyed the mixed approach of tasks, reading & discussion, and I came away with some amazing new thoughts & insights. Thank you so much! — UEA Creative Writing Course, MA Prose Fiction

I was in Eraldo’s Lounge Writers session on writing autobiographies. Eraldo selected excellent readings and discussed them closely, inviting our questions and comments. I really appreciated the balance between thorough examination of content and concepts and hands-on exercises on autobiography. Eraldo shared his extensive knowledge of world literature, literary criticism, and history in ways that contextualized the readings and provided a useful framework for the participants to contextualize the autobiographies they may want to write. I left this relatively short session with a deeper and broader understanding of the concepts covered. Eraldo is a generous, engaging, and enthusiastic instructor. I look forward to learning more from him in future sessions. — Lounge Writers

Eraldo is brilliant, current, and analytical. His course content was endless—in that beyond what was covered in class, Eraldo exposed us to new worlds in literature that we go forward to pursue independently, a sort of limitless virtual classroom. Eraldo's presentation/material is marvelously thought-provocative. He never talked down to the class while he consistently elevated our knowledge base. I consider it an honour to have studied w/ him and hope to do so again in the future. -Former Student The workshop was agile and engaging, where Eraldo Souza dos Santos shared his knowledge and encouraged everybody to participate. The writers and books he recommended to us (so hard to find alone in a bookstore) were precisely what I was looking for to pursue my project. Thanks! — The Center for Fiction

We All Have Family Stories to Tell, 3 sessions with Eraldo Souza dos Santos