The latest addition to my website is Mário de Andrade‘s Macunaíma (Macunaíma). When it first appeared, this was quite a revolutionary book, in that it was unlike other Brazilian novels of the time. We follow the story of Macunaíma, who is a trickster, a mythical person, who can perform magic but who is always up … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Adriana Lisboa‘s Azul-corvo (Crow Blue). Our heroine is Evangelina, known as Vanja, a thirteen year old, born in the US but who has spent most of her life in Brazil with her Brazilian mother, Suzana. Like most of the women in the family, Suzana dies young and Vanja … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Erico Veríssímo‘s Caminhos cruzados (Crossroads). This tells the stories of a host of characters who live on or have connections with a street in Porto Alegre, where Veríssímo lived. It is a thoroughly miserable tale. Most of the characters, rich or poor, married or single, young or old, … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Graça Aranha‘s Canaã (Canaan). We initially follow two German immigrants to Brazil who are looking to buy a plot and grow coffee. The two, however, are very different. Milkau is eager to enjoy the New World and keen on nature, while Lentz still very much feels that European … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Nélida Piño‘s A república dos sonhos (The Republic of Dreams). This is a long and complicated family saga, which jumps around chronologically – we start off with the family matriarch, Eulália, dying but she takes six hundred pages to do so. Madruga is an ambitious young man in … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Rodrigo de Souza‘s Todos os Cachorros São Azuis (All Dogs are Blue). Rodrigo de Souza suffered from mental health issues and, for a long time, would not leave his house. This novel is the story of an unnamed narrator who is in a mental hospital, as a result … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Roberto Drummond‘s Hilda Furacão (Hilda Hurricane). This is a very witty novel about a young woman from a prosperous background who gives it all up to become a prostitute and very successful she is, as all the men fall for her. Why does she do it? Our hero, … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Lima Barreto‘s Triste fim de Policarpo Quaresma (The Patriot; later: The Sad End of Policarpo Quaresma). The book is set in the 1890s and is a satire on the people of the era. Our eponymous hero is a respected civil servant, a bachelor who lives with his unmarried … Read more
The latest edition to my website is Euclides da Cunha‘s Os Sertões (Rebellion in the Backlands; later: Backlands: The Canudos Campaign). This is not a novel but has had considerable influence on Brazilian and other literatures and is sometimes mistaken for a novel, as it reads like one. It is an account of War of … Read more
Every year at around this time, after returning from our annual escape-the-English-winter holiday, I focus on the literature of just one country. This year the country is Brazil. Brazil has a long literary history. In 1500 Pedro Alvares Cabral made the first European exploration of what is now Brazil. With him was his scribe Pêro … Read more