“Open letter to deadbeats”: relations between correspondence and the press

Abstract

Between 1963 and 1995, São Paulo short story writer João Antônio (1937-1996) engaged in a prolific correspondence with his friend, Jácomo Mandatto (1933-2009), also a writer, journalist, and historian from Itapira. The documents resulting from this epistolary exchange were largely donated to the João Antônio Fund, housed at CEDAP – Unesp/Assis, in the early 2000s, and were organized into what came to be known as the ‘Jácomo Mandatto Collection. Within this extensive collection, spanning hundreds of letters, a subset has been identified for analysis in this article. These letters shed light on João Antônio’s critique of what he termed ‘default’ among groups with whom he had established commercial partnerships. Notably, in an era predating the advent of social media and internet-linked networks, conveying such grievances to a wider audience demanded considerable ingenuity. Herein lies the strategic role of these letters, which facilitated the formation of networks among writers and journalists both within Brazil and abroad. This article examines a selection of letters characterized by their hybrid nature. While inherently intimate in their content, they were also crafted with the intent of reaching a broader readership. These overt/circular letters were disseminated to numerous correspondents and subsequently published in newspapers and magazines, transcending the confines of the private sphere to engage with the public realm.