Guará, the Striker Who Was Not: Fiction and History in Sports Biography

Abstract

This paper intends to discuss the presence of the biographical discourse in Abstract: This paper intends to discuss the status of the biographical discourse in journalism and in the Brazilian sports culture. Its background comprises the broader debate on the borders between literature and history. To that end it uses theoretical references about narrative and biography, collected both in the field of literary and historical studies. From the historians’ work arises the perception of the narrative quality in past representations; the reflection on the different forms of articulating individual trajectories, focused on by biographies, as well as the collective experiences viewed by historiography. Literary studies foster discussions about fiction and its relationships with reality, as well connections between biographies and other literary forms. Through the concept of “biographical fiction” the fictional dimension of biographical narratives is made evident, and the heroic tradition of historical biographies is questioned. Therefore, this is an attempt to construct an analytical perspective from which it would be possible to better understand the meanings and functions of biographical writing in the formation of sports imagination. As an example of the possibilities unfolded by this perspective, the author briefly analyzes biographical texts about the trajectory of Guará, a player for the Atlético Mineiro Club in the 1930s, who reached stardom and whose ascension was dramatically interrupted by a violent clash with destiny.