Ecio Salles Award

Ecio Salles was a teenager with very low self-esteem “on the fringes of Complexo do Alemão”, as he liked to explain, always using elaborate Portuguese, in which one could see evidence of an intimate coexistence with books. His life began to change when pneumonia forced him to stay at home for a few months. His mother then gave him “The Alienist”, by Machado de Assis, from the Ediouro pocket collection. When he returned to classes, he saw a considerable increase in both his academic performance and his social performance. Becoming a reader even helped him get his first girlfriend.

He came up with the idea for the Carolina Maria de Jesus award, for which he also created the concept. "We are going to give this award to people who have had their lives changed by reading or who have changed the lives of others through reading," he said. This could be the epitaph written on his tombstone, in the Inhaúma cemetery, not far from the neighborhood in which he was raised. Ecio Salles was the last person to win the Carolina Maria de Jesus award. The person who gave it was Carolina Maria de Jesus' own daughter, teacher Vera Eunice. Unfortunately, it was his partner of 15 years who had to pay for him.

It was in 2014, in the Mangueira edition, that we started giving this commendation, which had several versions until Ecio Salles got his friend Loredano, one of the most inspired illustrators in Rio de Janeiro, to draw the face of Carolina Maria de Jesus for free. . In that first edition, the award was won by, in addition to activist Nilcimar Nogueira, writer Ana Paula Lisboa, Jessé Andarilho and Sarauzeiras Oníricas, three ladies who went through Flup's formation processes for whom he had true adoration. Other people who went through our training also received it, such as Viviane Salles and Geovani Martins.

We awarded five people each year. The award went both to the teachers who opened the doors of public schools in Rio de Janeiro to us (shout out to Simone Monteiro, Cirlene Fernandes and Bel Costa) and to the vibrant spoken word scene in São Paulo, such as Roberta Estrela D'Alva, Renan Inquérito and Alessandro Buzo. In the last year of its edition, we awarded the writers Conceição Evaristo and Ana Maria Gonçalves, who starred in one of the most vibrant tables in our history — about Carolina Maria de Jesus herself. Professor Vera Eunice also won the award this year.
It was Ecio's dream to transform the awards ceremony into a separate event, like Orilaxé, awarded by AfroReggae, by his friend and source of inspiration José Júnior. Fulfilling your dream will be another of the challenges we face after your early departure.