For João Anzanello Carrascoza, words shape us and the world. They cause pain, like thorns and pins. But, like needles, they help heal us from ourselves. In "THORNS AND PINS," his fifth book of short stories, this man who has loved words since he was a boy, discusses the different ways of experiencing goodbye, the difficult themes of loss and parting. "When we lose someone, we also say goodbye to who we were. And, deep down, we are saying goodbye all the time, even when we welcome someone back," the author argues. With rare sensitivity, Carrascoza also creates a special connection with the world of childhood—it can be found in adult memories, in the experience of fatherhood, or in the exploration of its rites of passage. "Childhood is a magical time, during which we experience, even amidst pain, a process of enchantment with the world. Later, as adults, we become blind to the beauties that once dazzled us, and then we spend the rest of our lives searching for this lost territory. Lost, but possible to rediscover within ourselves," he explains. In total, there are eleven short stories that once again demonstrate his inventive power and appreciation for the precise, necessary word at the moment. Carrascoza's narrators tell their stories from the perspective of children, as if childhood were the only real possibility of wonder and fantasy. The narratives, for the most part, revolve around the loss of innocence: young people are growing a shell for life and learning the childishness of all happiness. Bringing his prose closer to poetry, Carrascoza's linguistic constructions are singular and suggestive, here and there, of a kinship with Guimarães Rosa—without these ties representing a prison. Quite the contrary, this São Paulo native from Cravinhos wields language with ease, with images and comparisons that, more than poetry, seem to circumvent the meaninglessness of words, ultimately inaugurating a march toward lucidity.
