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
The latest addition to my website is Peter Stamm‘s Die sanfte Gleichgültigkeit der Welt (The Sweet Indifference of the World). The novel tells the story of a former writer, Chris, who meets an actress called Magdalena while in Stockholm, whose life seemingly mirrors his own life and that of his ex-girlfriend, also an actress called … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Carlos Droguett‘s Eloy [Eloy]. Ñato Eloy was a real-life Chilean bandit, killed by the police in 1941. This novel recounts the last twenty-four hours of his life, as seen from his perspective. He is hiding out in a shack, where an old man and young woman live. Both … Read more
The latest edition to my website is Amélie Nothomb‘s Soif [Thirst]. Nothomb had long been planning to write her Jesus novel but had not felt able to do so till 2019. It tells his story, from his point of view, from the trial to the resurrection. This is not your conventional religious novel, as this … Read more
The latest addition to my website isCésar Aira‘s Los misterios de Rosario [The Mysteries of Rosario]. The novel is partially concerned with climate change and the end of the world. It is set in Rosario, Argentina, and during October, when the weather is normally very mild, there is a raging snowstorm, with the temperature well … Read more