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Biography
“I
will become one of the most respectable names in horror
literature of all time,” I thought when I was 18.
It was
an era of big changes in my life. I was the son of poor
parents, living in a third world country and the baby of
the family. Born on 17 May, 1972, in the city of Santos
on the São Paulo coast, I had big plans to change
my reality. I began by crushing, in just one blow, an offer
of a job in the steelwork industry where my father had worked
his entire life. And with the job I crushed a world of expectations
that my family had cultivated.
In that
moment, that first existential crisis, I started to trace,
without knowing, the route of all real adventurers –
I abandoned a middle-life — secure and without taste
or dreams — for the dangerous road full of suffering,
and incomprehension, but also glories, freedom and life.
I decided
to be a writer.
The
prodigy schoolboy who enchanted the teachers with his drawings
and precocious redactions didn’t go to university.
He noticed that he hated the classroom; with its teaching
methods that dampened the creativity of people and molded
them to be just a cog in the system.
In adolescence
I discovered the universe of paranormality; of the occult,
the mysteries that hovered above mundane worries. I swapped
the magazines of Hulk, Spider Man, Swamp Thing and Ghost
Rider for the books of Allan Poe, Stephen King, Theophille
Goutier and those about UFOs and the Bermuda Triangle. The
illustrated stories that I drew, with my own super heroes,
were inch by inch substituted for tales that were longer
and scarier. Thus this time-pass grew in importance in my
life, overshadowing all else — family, friends, a
job that I detested, indeed what would conduct me to a future
where I will be just one more retired old man in front a
TV, trying not to think of the emptiness of my existence.
Maybe
the transition would have been smoother if I had somebody
to talk to. But that wasn’t the case. The redirection
happened amid terrible family altercations. The peaceful
Taurian began to disclose the sign ascendant of Leo. Thus,
while I started an unstable freelance cartoonist career,
I filled pages and pages with fear’s stories.
But
something unexpected happened: in the years that followed,
while I was rejected by publishers, I discovered another
universe — the universe of writers such as Richard
Bach and Saint-Exupéry. Very slowly, there was change
within me; the rebel discovered that it does not suffice
to just highlight the world’s defects, he needed to
show solutions. I discovered the universe of paranormality
was just a dangerous game if wasn’t serving spiritual
evolution.
This
way, I arrived to a new crossroad in my life. I took a deep
breath and faced my first big test — weaning myself
from horror stories; and I can say with pride that I passed
it. I destroyed the hundred pages with fear’s stories
that I had taken time and effort to create. What wasn’t
destroyed became new story drafts. So, as a flower that
emerges from the soil’s darkness, a new river of stories
budded from these drafts; I noted that I could use my talent
to create beauty and constructive things; good things, that
help people with their problems.
I never
became – and I don’t desire it any more –
a respected name in horror literature.
In
truth, my desires are much simplified. Today, a walk under
the autumn sunset is a plain gift to me. I discovered the
big truths are the more simple ones, and the best pleasures
are those that money can’t buy.
Books
Alfredo Karras is also the author of BE, previously published by Smink Works Books
BE came to me very naturally, emerging from the strange force
— flowing from the river of creativity that appeared
after my life-changing decision. After some hesitation in
the beginning, where I contemplated whether to write a fable
that featured animals or humans, the story of Henrique,
with all his life upsets and discoveries, filled my mind
with extraordinary speed.
Writing
is pure magic. It is a way to enter a thousand people’s
lives and help to transform them. It is a way to became
useful to God, the world and myself. I hope Be, like my
future books, will fall in the reader’s hands in the
moment they need some word; the same way as the words of
Richard and Antoine have helped me.
Provocative drawing
Today I live in Cubatão city and continue to work
in the parallel cartoonist’s career. I make cartoons
for many of the newspapers of São Paulo’s coast,
and some exhibitions have included my surrealist paintings
and cartoons. Although the citizens always like my cartoons,
the politicians and other authorities sometimes do not.
In 2003, two military policeman took legal action against
the Povo de Cubatão newspaper because a cartoon showed
the policeman using “moderate force” against
unarmed civilians during the Carnaval. Against all expectations,
they won. The things of Brazil.
Plans...?
Yes, I have many; film, inclusive. But that is another story
…
Alfredo
Karras used an unusual method to create these illustrations
for the novel Be. He had to use a mixture of color
pens and water because it is difficult to find water colors
where he lives in Brazil. " When
you are poor, you must to be creative,"
he says.
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