The Prophet, by Maria Francisca Gama, is a picture of mental health and the power of allowing ourselves to be affected

A frightening portrait of the important role mental health plays in each of us, and how society can allow itself to be influenced by actions that seem good but hide deep disorders. the ProphetMaria Francisca Gama’s book is one of those miserable books, but it is a book that makes us reach our deepest, most profound selves. To what extent will we be able to be guides, or allow ourselves to be blindly guided?

Revista Rua interviewed the young author, trying to reveal more about what is behind the main character, Mariana, and how much closer our society could be to a reality like the one in the book.

How were you born? Mariana? How has the influence of today’s world made you develop a character who, despite her seemingly banal life, is more than just trivial, an incredible instinct for life, for the people around her? This is what it is, and nothing more? Hopeless, in the lack of love.

I think the best way I can explain why is that Mariana That being the case, I will recommend reading the short story I wrote for her E-book “Nine (non-)traditional Christmas tales”, published by Penguin Random House in 2022. However, I can say that Personal Mariana It arose from my realization, in my late teens, that not everyone believes what I believe, that is, that everyone has their own beliefs, many of which are beyond me. The economic crisis and the growing and accelerating crisis of values ​​have made me imagine a life different from my own, in extreme situations, and I think there can be a terrible feeling of abandonment, which can lead someone in fiction (but also in real life). Believing in a woman who has the gift of gab, who will guide that person to a “simple” and “easy” solution. And so some movements developed that I disagree with: “Do you have a complex and difficult problem that is making you extremely miserable?” – “Yes” – “Here is a quick and effective solution that will bring you satisfaction at least in the short term.”

A character’s past could be a reason (the motivation for everything) for him to want more than just a sense of justice/revenge. He could have turned his life around and he didn’t. His practical sense of life has been fulfilled, having failed to achieve his true goal Mariana. But until when? To what extent? When does it stop being a personal struggle and become an obsession and addiction?

I think this is one of the most intriguing points in the book – how can someone who cannot figure out his own life and stay in a job he doesn’t like, without romantic relationships, and without visible success, lead others to a better life? Life in peace? I think it became an obsession, that Mariana He thought this was his mission. Despite how he felt about religion and the image of God, there was some envy and desire to replace it – to be God in the lives of those he met.

In the time we live in yesterday, given the speed with which everything happens, where there is no time to really get to know each other, neither parents nor children, and where compassion no longer exists and gives way to intolerance, it will be the case that in the future we may have more Mariana? To what extent will an increasingly technological and less humane society, given its fragile social situation, take something into its own hands? Could the extremism we talk about so much become something similar to the subject of the book? Are we heading towards this degree of dystopia?

I hope the Prophet never stops being a fantasy. I’m not a futurist, but I’m not a pessimist either – I believe the world is changing, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse, but I maintain hope that we will continue, and that good will triumph over evil. The purpose of this book is not to preach justice into its own hands – quite the opposite – to show how widespread disbelief in institutions, lack of empathy, and “following with one’s eyes closed” someone, even an eloquent one, can harm the lives of dozens of people and be the beginning of ruin. It’s just fiction and I hope you keep reading it that way – like crazy, it’s impossible to happen.