The objective of this thesis is to think over Guimarães Rosa creative process and the making of his self-image as an author based on his literary archives and to establish a dialog with his biography. The idea is to explore how he passed from the desire to write to scripture; his transitioning from short narratives to long ones and vice versa; his relationship with the press. Finally, we will analyze Guimarães Rosa s unfinished novel A fazedora de velas (The candle maker), linking it with his last books and with the works of other writers, such as Marcel Proust and Gilberto Freyre. Roland Barthes will be our main guide throughout those literary paths, especially the last two courses he delivered at the Collége de France, published in Brazil as The preparation of a novel I and II.