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F R A N K F U R T 2008 2008 F r a n k f u r t Dear Friends It’s a great pleasure to present to you our agency´s highlights for Frankfurt, 2009. You are also welcome to visit our site www.agenciariff.com.br , where you’ll find further informations about all our authors and clients. Agencia Riff will complete its 18th anniversary on January 2009. We work as coagents for important foreign publishers and literary agents, selling rights in Brazil and Portugal. We also represent a list of essential Brazilian authors, taking care of their works in domestic and international markets. Our co-agent Anne-Marie Vallat / AMV Agencia Literaria represents Agencia Riff ’s authors for the Spanish Language, Portugal and France. Contacts with Anne-Marie Vallat through email at [email protected], or www.amvagencialiteraria.com Our co-agent Nicole Witt / Literarische Agentur Mertin represents Agencia Riff ’s authors for all other territories. Contacts with Nicole Witt through email at [email protected], or www.mertin-litag.de (Cintia Moscovich, Erico Verissimo, Luis Fernando Verissimo and Lygia Fagundes Telles are represented by Literarische Agentur Mertin for all territories, including Spanish Language, Portugal and France). Please feel free to contact us at any time should you need more information about our authors, reading copies, sample translations or updated rights lists. Contacts can be made directly or through our dear friends Anne-Marie Vallat and Nicole Witt. Many thanks, Muito obrigado, Lucia Riff, Laura Riff & João Paulo Riff Contents 1 AUTHORS OPERAÇÃO RESgATE EM BAgDÁ – Luciana Savaget QUANDO EU ERA PEQUENA • Adélia Prado QUARTO DE MENINA – Livia Garcia Roza TODAS AS COISAS QUEREM SER OUTRAS COISAS – Letícia Wierzchowski UÓLACE E JOÃO VICTOR • Rosa Amanda Strausz VALENTINA • Márcio Vassalo Complete List 2 HIgHLIgHTS 2008 2.1 Fiction AOS MEUS AMIgOS • Maria Adelaide Amaral BLACK MUSIC • Arthur Dapieve CONSPIRAÇÃO DE NUVENS • Lygia Fagundes Telles ELITE DA TROPA • Luiz Eduardo Soares, André Batista e Rodrigo Pimentel ELZA • Sérgio Rodrigues LOUCA POR HOMEM • Claudia Tajes O MUNDO É BÁRBARO • Luis Fernando Verissimo O SILÊNCIO DOS AMANTES • Lya Luft O VÔO DA gUARÁ VERMELHA • Maria Valéria Rezende PÁSSAROS DE VÔO CURTO • Alcione Araujo POR QUE SOU gORDA MAMÃE • Cíntia Moscovich SATOLEP • Vitor Ramil UMA PONTE PARA TEREBIM • Letícia Wierchowski UMA VIDA INVENTADA • Maitê Proença 2.2 Non-Fiction APRENDIZ DO TEMPO • Ivo Pintanguy O BOM CONFLITO • Maria Tereza Maldonado O PAI INVISÍVEL • Kledir Ramil PAIS, FILHOS & CIA ILIMITADA • Gladis Brun 2.3 Children & Ya 23 HISTÓRIAS DE UM VIAJANTE • Marina Colasanti A COMÉDIA DOS ANJOS • Adriana Falcão A DISTÂNCIA DAS COISAS • Flávio Carneiro HISTÓRIAS DE BRUXA BOA • Lya Luft O MENINO QUE QUERIA SER CELULAR – Marcelo Pires 3 BRAZILIAN LITERATURE – CLASSIC AUTHORS Carlos Drummond de Andrade Erico Verissimo João Cabral de Melo Neto Mario Quintana Rachel de Queiroz 4 SAMPLE TRANSLATIONS (available at www.agenciariff.com.br) 4.1 Fiction A COMÉDIA DOS ANJOS • Comedy of Angels, by Adriana Falcão A VIDA SEXUAL DA MULHER FEIA • Sex Life of the Ugly Woman, by Claudia Tajes DE CADA AMOR TU HERDARÁS SÓ O CINISMo • From Each Love You Shall Get Nothing But Scorn, by Arthur Dapieve ELITE DA TROPA • Elite Squad, by Luiz Eduardo Soares, André Batista e Rodrigo Pimentel O HOMEM QUE MATOU O ESCRITOR • The Man Who Killed the Writer, by Sérgio Rodrigues O VÔO DA gUARÁ VERMELHA • The Flight of the Red Ibis, by Maria Valéria Rezende POR QUE SOU gORDA , MAMÃE? • Why Am I Fat, Mummy? by Cíntia Moscovich SATOLEP . Satolep, by Vitor Ramil UMA PONTE PARA TEREBIN • A Bridge to Terebin, by Letícia Wierzchowski 4.2 Non-fiction PERDAS E gANHOS • Losses & Gains, by Lya Luft Authors Adélia PRADO Ivo PITANgUY Maria Adelaide AMARAL Adriana FALCÃO Janaína Didio MICHALSKI Maria Tereza MALDONADO Alcione ARAúJO João CABRAL de MELO NETO Maria Valéria REZENDE André BATISTA João Silvério TREVISAN Mariana VERISSIMO Ariano SUASSUNA Jorge de LIMA Marina COLASANTI Arthur DAPIEVE José Cândido de CARVALHO Mario QUINTANA Augusto Frederico SCHMIDT Josué de CASTRO Paulo Emilio SALES gOMES Bob FERNANDES Kledir RAMIL Paulo MENDES CAMPOS Carlos DRUMMOND de ANDRADE Leticia WIERZCHOWSKI Rachel de QUEIROZ Carlos Herculano LOPES Livia gARCIA-ROZA Ricardo RAMOS Cecília VASCONCELLOS Luciana SAVAgET Roberto DaMATTA Celso LUFT Luis Fernando VERISSIMO Rodrigo PIMENTEL Cintia MOSCOVICH Luiz Claudio CARDOSO Rosa Amanda STRAUSZ Claudia TAJES Luiz Eduardo SOARES Sérgio RODRIgUES Cristiane COSTA Lya LUFT Suzana VARgAS Erico VERISSIMO Lygia FAgUNDES TELLES Sylvia ORTHOF Fernando EICHENBERg Maitê PROENÇA Vitor RAMIL Flávio CARNEIRO Marcelo PIRES Zuenir VENTURA gladis BRUN Márcio VASSALLO Listed by genre FICTION ❤♠♣ contemporary prose, poetry & short stories ❤ NOVEL ♣ SHORT STORY ♠ POETRY ♦ NON-FICTION H CHILDREN & YA v CLASSIC AUTHORS w THEATER l HUMOUR t PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT n FAIRY TALES Adélia Prado Adriana Falcão Alcione Araújo André Batista Ariano Suassuna Arthur Dapieve Carlos Herculano Lopes Cintia Moscovich Claudia Tajes Cristiane Costa Flávio Carneiro João Silvério Trevisan Leticia Wierzchowski Livia garcia-Roza Luis Fernando Verissimo Luiz Claudio Cardoso Luiz Eduardo Soares Lya Luft Lygia Fagundes Telles Maitê Proença Maria Adelaide Amaral Maria Valéria Rezende Marina Colasanti Rodrigo Pimentel Rosa Amanda Strausz Sérgio Rodrigues Vitor Ramil NON-FICTION ♦ Bob Fernandes Fernando Eichenberg gladis Brun Ivo Pitanguy Kledir Ramil Maria Tereza Maldonado Marina Colasanti Roberto DaMatta Zuenir Ventura CHILDREN & YA H Adélia Prado Adriana Falcão Cecília Vasconcellos Cristiane Costa Flavio Carneiro Janaina Didio Michalski Leticia Wierzchowski Luciana Savaget Marcelo Pires Márcio Vassallo Mariana Verissimo Marina Colasanti Rosa Amanda Strausz Suzana Vargas BRAZILIAN LITERATURE v CLASSIC AUTHORS Augusto Frederico Schmidt Carlos Drummond de Andrade Celso Luft Erico Verissimo João Cabral de Melo Neto Jorge de Lima José Cândido de Carvalho Josué de Castro Mario Quintana Paulo Emilio de Sales gomes Paulo Mendes Campos Rachel de Queiroz Ricardo Ramos Sylvia Orthof elaboração e versão em inglês dos textos Amanda Orlando capa e projeto gráfico Fatima Agra foto da capa Zeca Linhares editoração e impressão FA Editoração Eletrônica Rua Visconde de Pirajá 414/1108 – Ipanema 22410-002 – Rio de Janeiro – RJ – BRASIL tel.: (5521) 2287-6299 fax.: (5521) 2267-6393 [email protected] www.agenciariff.com.br Highlights 2008 FICTION NON-FICTION CHILDREN & YA Aos Meus Amigos • To My Friends MARIA ADELAIDE AMARAL Highlights – Fiction To My Friends (Aos meus amigos) deals with two very difficult, inseparable subjects: death and suicide. Maria Adelaide Amaral, author of celebrated novel Luisa, tells the story of a group of friends who come together after one of them commits suicide. With Leo’s death, his old friends try to keep his memory alive and find the manuscript he supposedly wrote just before jumping out of a window. They all come from the same generation and share an unhappy apathy with their own lives. The search for Leo’s lost manuscript triggers a torrent of conversations and memories which expose the personal crisis of a specific generation – those who left a strict upbringing to embrace the excesses of 20th century’s final decades – and the evolution of Brazil and its uncertain democracy. Told characteristically in Maria Adelaide’s intelligent, dry and humorous style, To My Friends is an elegy to friendship and, ultimately, to the love that binds people together. To My Friends was adapted to a TV series (TV gLOBO), launched in January, 2008 with great success. Born in Porto, Portugal, in 1942, Maria Adelaide Amaral moved to Brazil when she was twelve. After graduating in Journalism, she began a successful career as a playwright, and made her literary debut with Luisa, Almost a Love Story (Luísa, quase uma história de amor), the portrait of the generation that came of age during the 1960s and 1970s. In the 1990s, she collaborated in some of the best examples of Brazilian writing for TV, such as the adaptation of Eça de Queiroz’s classic The Maias (Os Maias), and Letícia Wierzchowski’s The House of the Seven Women (A casa das sete mulheres). Works ❤ Luisa, quase uma história de amor – 1986, globo O bruxo – 2000, globo Estrela nua: Amor e sedução – Coleção Amores extremos – 2003, Record Aos meus amigos – 1992, 2008, globo H Coração solitário (ill. César Landucci and Mauricio Negro) – 1996, global w Ó abre alas – Coleção Dramaturgia de Sempre – 2000, Civilização Brasileira Tarsila – 2004, globo Mademoiselle Chanel – 2004, globo Melhor teatro (edited by Silvana garcia) - 2006, global Black Music • Black Music ARTHuR DApIEvE Highlights – Fiction Michael Philips is a 13 years old black Amerizan citizen, in his way to be a seven-footer, when he is kidnapped by a gang of heavily armed Rio de Janeiro’s drug dealers. They use carnival masks of Osama bin Laden, thus attracting the attention of the FBI. Seeing at stake his dreams of playing basketball and studying trumpet at the same university attended by his idol Michael Jordan, his deep passion for jazz begins to captivate both the chief dealer, a 17 years old white boy who dreams of becoming a gansta rap star, and the captivity’s cooker, a 16 years old mulatto girl who loves to dance at one of Rio’s famous bailes funk. This is the plot of Brazilian music critic Arthur Dapieve’s second novel, Black music, a tragicomedy not about violence, but about race, dreams, and lust. Born in Rio de Janeiro in 1963, Arthur Dapieve is a well-known cultural journalist with a weekly column in the O Globo daily newspaper since 1993. He teaches writing techniques at Rio’s Catholic University, has recently hosted a successful comedy TV show on the cable network and is working on another one. He is also the author of five non-fiction and comedy books including BRock, a well-praised history of 1980s Brazilian rock, and the biography of Brazilian pop icon Renato Russo. Works ❤ De cada amor tu herdarás só o cinismo – 2004, Objetiva Black Music – 2008, Objetiva H Morte – Coleção explicando a meus filhos – Agir (to be published) ♦ BRock: O rock brasileiro dos anos 80 – 1995, Editora 34 Guia de rock em CD (with Luiz Henrique Romanholli) – 2000, Jorge Zahar Editor Renato Russo: O trovador solitário – 2000, 2006, Ediouro Os Paralamas do Sucesso (photographs by Mauricio Valladares, comments by Bi Ribeiro, Herbert Vianna and João Barone) – 2006, Senac Rio/Jaboticaba Morreu na contramão: O suicídio como notícia – 2007, Jorge Zahar Editor 300 discos importantes da música brasileira (with Tárik de Souza and Carlos Calado) – 2008, Paz e Terra l Manual do Mané (with gustavo Poli and Sérgio Rodrigues) – 2003, Editora Planeta Conspiração de Nuvens • Conspiracy of Clouds LYgIA FAguNDEs TELLEs Highlights – Fiction Conspiracy of Clouds (Conspiração de nuvens) is Lygia Fagundes Telles’ first collection of stories since Invention and Memory (Invenção e memória). The stories are a combination of memories and fiction – according to the author, ‘some of the facts I speak about have happened, others could have happened but did not... this book is completely different from my previous ones’. Lygia was inspired by saying of St. Augustine: ‘Memory is the home of the soul’ and embarked on a journey to this house of memory. Whilst visiting its different rooms, she find pieces of her own past and chooses to recount them as they really happened, or transforms them into fiction. The author tells of her trip to Brasília in the company of fellow writers in the middle of Brazil’s violent military dictatorship, in order to hand the Minister of Justice a petition against the fierce censorship of that period. She also revisits some of her other books and characters, using her own past to create a true gift to readers. Born in São Paulo in 1923 and author of over thirty works – novels, short stories and memoirs -, Lygia Fagundes Telles is the great lady of Brazilian literature. Elected to the Brazilian Academy of Letters in 1982, she won the prestigious Camões Award, the major reward in Portuguese-language literature. Her stories spring from the clash between external reality and our internal desires and fears. Among her most famous books are The Girls (As meninas) and Stone Dance (Ciranda de pedra). Works ❤ ♣ A noite escura e mais eu – 1995, Rocco Meus contos preferidos –2004, Rocco Histórias de mistério – 2004, Rocco Meus contos esquecidos – 2005, Rocco Verão no aquário – 1963, Rocco As meninas – 1974, Rocco As horas nuas – 1989, Rocco Ciranda de pedra – 1954, 2008, Rocco Antes do baile verde – 1970, Rocco Seminário dos ratos – 1977, Rocco Mistérios – 1981, Rocco A estrutura da bolha de sabão - 1991, Rocco ♦ A disciplina do amor – 1980, Rocco Invenção e memória – 2000, Rocco Durante aquele estranho chá – 2002, Rocco Conspiração de Nuvens – 2007, Rocco Highlights – Fiction Foreign Editions FRANCE La discipline de l’amour – 2002, Éditions Payot & Rivages Les pensionnaires - 2005, Éditions Stock gERMANY Nackte Stunden – Rütten & Loening, Berlin gmbh HOLLAND De Meisjes – 1998, Uitgeverij De geus ITALY Ragazze – 2006, Cavallo Di Ferro Antes do baile verde – Cavallo Di Ferro (to be published) PORTUgAL As horas nuas – 2005, Presença As meninas – 2006, Presença Verão no aquário – 2006, Presença Ciranda de pedra – 2008, Presença Author’s Website: www.lygiafagundestelles.com.br Elite da Tropa • Elite Squad Highlights – Fiction LuIz EDuARDO sOAREs ANDRé bATIsTA RODRIgO pIMENTEL Written by prominent anthropologist Luiz Eduardo Soares in collaboration with André Batista and Rodrigo Pimentel - two former operatives in Rio de Janeiro’s special police force, BOPE - Elite Squad reveals for the first time and viewed from the inside the strenuous training and dramatic day-to-day life of the men sent to fight at the forefront of the guerilla warfare against drug lords in Rio’s slums. It is a compelling fictional account based on the actual experiences of the writers, where the reader can hear the voice of the policeman himself and follow his daily struggles while serving as a killing machine whose only logic is war. Elite Squad stems from the same material behind violent and controversial new film by director José Padilha (Bus 174), which premiered at Rio’s Int’l Film Festival September, 07. After the film was distributed throughout Brazil in thousands of pirate copies following a leak in the editing room, BOPE unsuccessfully tried to prevent its national release scheduled for early October, 07 which only boosted its popularity. The film is being launched internationally in September / October 2008. Luiz Eduardo Soares is one of Brazil’s most influent authors in the field of public security. A PhD in Political Science, he is currently Secretary of Life Valuation and Crime Prevention in Nova Iguaçu, an important Rio suburb, and teaches at universities. He has 11 books to his credit, including the best-seller Pig Head (Cabeça de porco, 2005). André Batista is a police captain in Rio de Janeiro. He served at BOPE between 1996 and 2001, and also graduated as a lawyer. Rodrigo Pimentel spent several years as a policeman, including a five-year span at BOPE between 1995 and 2000. He co-produced Bus 174 and currently works as a security consultant. Works ♣ Meu casaco de general: 500 dias no front da Segurança Pública do Estado do Rio de Janeiro – 2000, Companhia das Letras Cabeça de porco (with MV Bill and Celso Athayde) – 2005, Objetiva Elite da tropa (with André Batista and Rodrigo Pimentel) – 2006, Objetiva Legalidade libertária – 2006, Lumen-Juris Segurança tem saída – 2006, Sextante. Foreign Editions ITALY Elite da tropa – Bompiani (to be published) POLONIA Elite da tropa – Wydawnictwo Ksiazkowe Twój Styl (to be published) PORTUgAL Tropa de Elite – 2008, Presença USA Elite Squad – 2008, Weinstein Elza • Elza séRgIO RODRIguEs Highlights – Fiction Elza, the girl, by Sérgio Rodrigues – In a bold mixture of reality and fiction, historical research and literary invention, this fast-paced novel tells the real tragic story of Elza Fernandes, a 16 year-old communist who got involved in the famous “Intentona” – a failed attempt to overthrow the Brazilian government orchestrated in 1935 by the Third International. Led by Luiz Carlos Prestes (a.k.a. “The Knight of Hope”, the greatest myth in the history of the left in the Americas), the would-be revolution joins the rise of nazi-fascism in Europe and Brazil to provide the tumultuous background for Elza’s pathetic life. Illiterate and gorgeous, the girl was unfairly accused of treachery and coldly murdered by her own conspiracy comrades, who buried her body in a suburban backyard in Rio de Janeiro. Forgotten since then by both right and left, Elza is finally rescued by a surprising act of love and literature. Born in Muriaé, Minas gerais in 1962 and living in Rio de Janeiro since 1979, Sérgio Rodrigues built a solid reputation as one of the best writers in Brazilian journalism, having lent his pen to several major newspapers and magazines such as O Globo, Jornal do Brasil and Veja. He is the author of a novel, The Flowerville Seeds (As sementes de Flowerville), two short story collections and a comedy book. Works ❤ As sementes de Flowerville – 2006, Objetiva Elza – Nova Fronteira (to be published) ♣ O homem que matou o escritor – 2000, Objetiva What língua is esta? – 2005, Ediouro l Manual do mané (with Arthur Dapieve and gustavo Poli) – 2003, Planeta Louca por Homem • Mad about men CLAuDIA TAjEs Highlights – Fiction It takes a long time to learn how to love, but only a few hours to feel what is to be loved. graça, the main character of Mad About Man (Louca por homem), searches madly for love, and experiences good and not-so-good relationships. All that she wants is to have a caring man by her side - but, to reach her target, she changes herself like a chameleon to the tastes, habits and cultures of her boy friends and lovers. Pictured as a comedy, this old story acquires new meaning. Claudia Tajes is an accurate and extremely funny observer of the human behavior, and writes with intelligence and charm. Once again, she shows us her impressive talent for comedy and, like graça, completely seduces the reader. Claudia Tajes was born in Porto Alegre in 1963, and spent many years working as a writer in advertising until she started writing fiction in 2000. Author of four novels and three short stories collections, she was soon noticed for her ability to turn tragedy into comedy, weaving stories full of irony and good humor in a fresh, unmistakable style. She currently works as a scriptwriter, adapting her own writings as well as creating original stories for TV, movies and plays. Works ❤ Dez quase amores – 2000, L&PM Dores, amores & assemelhados – 2002, L&PM Vida dura – 2003, Planeta A vida sexual da mulher feia – 2005, Agir As pernas de Úrsula e outras possibilidades – 2001, 2006, Agir Louca por homem - histórias de uma doente de amor – 2007, Agir Foreign Editions ITALY La vita sessuale della donna brutta – 2008, Cavallo di Ferro O Mundo é Bárbaro • The World is Terrific LuIs FERNANDO vERIssIMO Highlights – Fiction After millions of years of evolution, humans seem hopeless. They continue to set the Earth on fire and there are no indications that a super firefighter is coming to save the planet. From environmental issues to politics, including economics and people’s everyday terrifying behavior, there is an abundance of arguments for the pessimists. But not everything is lost. Earth is inhabited by Luis Fernando Verissimo’s sense of humor and its salvation lays on the chronicles gathered in The World is Terrific. A collection of 70 texts written in the last eight years, it discusses the Chinese ascension, the war against terror, Barack Obama’s campaign to the White House and Brazil and Latin America’s past and future. Simultaneously, Verissimo does an accurate examination of the modern man behavior, using his unique talent to match universal themes with others taken from the trivialities of every daily life, always with the sharp style and the critical view that became a reference all over the world. Born in Porto Alegre in 1936, Luis Fernando Verissimo is currently one of the most successful authors in Brazil. With millions of copies sold, his books have been adapted for the stage and screen, and have been translated in 17 languages. Son of renowned writer Erico Verissimo, Luis Fernando has worked as a journalist and writes for newspapers like O Globo, O Estado de S. Paulo and Zero Hora. He is specially known for his short narratives – crônicas – but has also written celebrated novels such as The Club of Angels (O clube dos anjos). Works ❤ O clube dos anjos – 1998, Objetiva Borges e os orangotangos eternos – 2000, Companhia das Letras O opositor – 2004, Objetiva A mancha – Coleção Vozes do golpe – 2004, Companhia das Letras O jardim do diabo – 1988, 2005, Objetiva A décima segunda noite - Coleção Devorando Shakespeare – 2006, Objetiva ♣ Histórias brasileiras de verão – 1999, Objetiva Aquele estranho dia que nunca chega – 1999, Objetiva A eterna privação do zagueiro absoluto – 1999, Objetiva As mentiras que os homens contam – 2000, Objetiva A mesa voadora – 2001, Objetiva Sexo na cabeça – 2002, Objetiva Todas as histórias do analista de Bagé – 2002, Objetiva Banquete com os deuses – 2003, Objetiva O melhor das comédias da vida privada – 2004, Objetiva O nariz e outras crônicas – 2004, Ática Orgias – 2005, Objetiva O mundo é bárbaro – 2008, Objetiva As mentiras que os homens contam (Audiobook) – 2008, Plugme ♠ Poesia numa hora dessas – 2002, Objetiva H Comédias para se ler na escola – 2001, Objetiva Festa de criança: Para gostar de ler junior – 2001, Ática O santinho – 2002, Objetiva Mais comédias para ler na escola – 2008, Objetiva Foreign Editions ARgENTINA Borges y los orangutanes eternos – 2005, Editorial Sudamericana CATALONIA O opositor –Editora La Campana (to be published) DENMARK Borges of de Evige Orangutanger – 2003, glyldend Al FRANCE Et mourir de plaisir – 2001, Éditions du Seuil Borges et les orangs-outangs éternels – 2004, Éditions du Seuil Lê doigt du diable – 2006, Éditions du Seuil Ed Mort e outras histórias –L’écailler du Sud (to be published) Highlights – Fiction gERMANY Kleine Lügen – 1999, Europa Verlag Der Club Der Engel – 2001, Lichtenberg Verlag/Droemer Vogelsteins Verwirrung – 2003, Droemersche Verlagsanstalt Meierhoffs Verschwörrung – 2006 – Droemersche Verlagsanstalt KOREA Borges e os orangotangos eternos – Woongjin Think Big Co. (to be published) O clube dos anjos – 2007, Woogjin Thin Big Co. As Mentiras que os homens contam -2008, Woogjin Thin Big Co. PORTUgAL O clube dos anjos – 2001, Dom Quixote As mentiras que os homens contam – 2001, Dom Quixote Comédias para se ler na escola – 2002, Dom Quixote A mesa voadora – 2003, Dom Quixote Sexo na cabeça – 2004, Dom Quixote O melhor das comédias da vida privada – 2005, Dom Quixote Orgias – 2008, Dom Quixote ROMENIA Borges si urangutanii eterni – 2005, Curtea Veche O clube dos anjos – 2005, Curtea Vechea Publishing RUSSIA O clube dos anjos – Ast Publishers (to be published) Borges e os orangotangos eternos – AST Publishers (to be published) SERBIA AND MONTENEgRO Borges e os orangotangos eternos – Trivic (to be published) SPAIN El club de los angeles – 2001, Plaza y Janés Las Mentiras que los hombre cuentam – 2007, Ézaro Sexo em la cabeza – 2008, Ézaro Borges e os orangotangos eternos – Ézaro (to be published) Borges e os orangotangos eternos – Bambook Publishers (to be published) UK The Club of Angels – 2001, Harvill Borges and the Eternal Orang-Utans – 2004, Harvill ITALY Il club degli angeli – 2000, Ponte Alle grazie Le bugie che raccontano gli uomini – 2004, Ponte Alle grazie USA The Club of Angels – 2002, New Directions The Club of Angels (pocket book) – 2002, New Directions Borges and the Eternal Orangutans - 2005, New Directions JAPAN Borges e os orangotango eternos – 2008, Fusosha YUgOSLAVIA O Clube de los Anjos – 2002, Narodna Knjiga gREECE O Clube dos Anjos – 2001, Enalios Borges e os Orangotangos Eternos – 2007, Agra Publiactions ISRAEL Author’s Website: www.luisfernandoverissimo.com.br O Silêncio dos Amantes • Lovers’ Hush LYA LuFT Highlights – Fiction In Lovers’ Hush (O silêncio dos amantes), Lya Luft once again surprises the reader with stories about her favorite themes, which have appeared since her first books: difficulties in communication and silences between people who love, or should love, family conflicts, the search for a meaning in life, the need for comprehension and also the magic and the love of relationships. A couple overcomes the sorrows from the past and finds a new and very peculiar way to start again; the routine that does not allow us to perceive the dramas of people who are by our side; the hatred and the rebellion that explodes in a violent liberation; the prejudice against differences that can be mortal; the superficiality that hinders us from living a real love; the death that discloses life’s values: all of us are touched by the mystery. With courage and tenderness, Lya Luft challenges us to see our daily lives from another point of view, understanding that it is the unexpected that makes everything more precious. Born in 1938 in Santa Cruz do Sul, south of Brazil, Lya Luft was already an established poet, novelist, short story writer and translator when her career took a leap with the tremendous success of Losses & Gains, closely followed by the volume of short stories To Think is to Transgress (Pensar é transgredir) and In Other Words (Em outras palavras), a collection of essays published in the weekly magazine Veja. A keen examiner of human feelings, Lya has written eight novels, including the classic Partners (As parceiras), reprinted more than twenty times. Works ❤ ♣ A asa esquerda do anjo – 1981, 2003, Record As parceiras – 1990, 2003, Record O ponto cego – 1999, 2003, Record Reunião de família – 1982, 2004, Record O quarto fechado – 1984, 2004, Record Exílio – 1988, 2005, Record A sentinela – 1994, 2005, Record Pensar é transgredir – 2004, Record Em outras palavras – 2006, Record O Silêncio dos amantes – 2008, Record ♠ O lado fatal – 1988, Siciliano Secreta mirada – 1997, 2005, Record Para não dizer adeus – 2005, Record H Histórias de bruxa boa (ill. Susana Luft) – 2005, Record A volta da bruxa boa (ill. Susana Luft) – 2007, Record Criança Pensa (with Eduardo Luft , ill. Susana Luft) – Record (to be published) ♦ Histórias do tempo – 2000, Siciliano Mar de dentro – 2002, Record O rio do meio – 1996, 2003, Record Perdas & Ganhos – 2003, Record Perdas & Ganhos (Audiobook) – 2008, Plugme Highlights – Fiction Foreign Editions CATALONIA Pèrdues i guanys – 2005, grup 62 DENMARK Perdas & ganhos – Bazar Forlag (to be published) FINLAND Perdas & Ganhos – Bazar Forlag (to be published) FRANCE Pertes & Profits – 2005, Editions Metaillié gERMANY Gezeiten des Glücks – 2005, Ulstein HOLLAND Geven em Nemen – 2005, De Boekerij ISRAEL Perdas e Ganhos – 2006, Kinneret-Zmora ITALY Perdite e Guadagni – 2006, RCS Libri/Bompiani NORWAY Perdas & Ganhos – Bazar Forlag (to be published) PORTUgAL Perdas & Ganhos – 2004, Editorial Presença Pensar é transgredir – 2005, Editorial Presença A asa esquerda do anjo – 2008, Pergaminho As parceiras – 2008, Pergaminho Reunião de família – Pergaminho (to be published) O Silencio dos Amantes - Planeta Portugal (to be published) SPAIN Pérdidas y ganancias – 2005, El Pais/Aguilar SWEDEN Perdas & Ganhos – Bazar Forlag (to be published) UK Losses and Gains – 2007, Vermilion YUgOSLAVIA Dobici i gubici – 2006, Laguna O Vôo da guará Vermelha • The Flight of the Red Ibis Highlights – Fiction MARIA vALéRIA REzENDE The Flight of the Red Ibis (O vôo da guará vermelha), Maria Valéria Rezende’s first novel, is the tale of an unlikely and deeply moving love between Rosálio, an illiterate construction worker in São Paulo, and Irene, an HIV-positive prostitute who has lost the will to live. He needs someone to listen to the stories he has to tell – even though he doesn’t know how to read or write; she in turn needs someone who can truly love her. Together, these two anonymous and invisible people weave a beautiful tale about the need for affection that afflicts people in the modern world, especially in cities as vast and harsh as South America’s largest metropolis. In a truly original voice, the author deftly crafts a narrative both sophisticated and very easy to read. She draws inspiration from classical references such as Thousand and One Nights as well as from the pace and language of cordel, a traditional style of popular writing very common in north-eastern Brazil. The Flight of the Red Ibis is a breath of fresh air in Brazilian fiction. Born in Santos in 1942, Maria Valéria Rezende is a nun of the Congregation of Our Lady–Canonesses of St. Augustine. She spent over thirty years teaching literacy, first within the working class movement in suburban São Paulo, and then in north-eastern Brazil, where she now lives. The author travels frequently abroad to act as a consultant and organize workshops. A great revelation of contemporary Brazilian literature, she has also written two short story collections and also books for children and young authors. Works Foreign Editions ❤ O vôo da guará vermelha – 2005, Objetiva CATALONIA O vôo da guará vermelha – Club Editor 1984, sl. (to be published) ♣ Vasto mundo – 2001, Beca Modo de apanhar pássaros à mão – 2006, Objetiva FRANCE Le vol de l’ibis rouge – 2008, Editions Metaillié PORTUgAL O vôo da guará vermelha – 2007, Oficina do Livro SPAIN O vôo da guará vermelha – Santillana (to be published) H O arqueólogo do futuro – 2006, Planeta O Problema do pato – 2006, Planeta No risco do caracol – 2008, Autêntica Jardim do menino poeta – Planeta (to be published) Conversa de passarinhos (with Alice Ruiz) – Iluminuras (to be published) Pássaros de Vôo Curto • Short Flight Birds ALCIONE ARAújO Highlights – Fiction Short Flight Birds (Pássaros de vôo curto) is an outstanding novel, full of unforgettable characters intertwined with all the main facts in the Brazilian history of the last century. Alcione Araújo, on the top of his inventiveness, puts together unusual and endearing characters, like a lyrical singer that starts a tour through the Brazilian countryside just to find an exhausted land full of amazing people; an American pianist that arrives in Brazil to work in a casino and finds out, as soon as he leaves the ship, that gambling has become illegal and therefore deciding to stay and try a new life; and an English man that falls in love with an Italian immigrant, verifying in loco the mix of races and cultures that makes Brazil a country full of colors and differences. An audacious and authentic novel in which several stories go by along the decades, Alcione Araújo’s new work is a display of a multi-sided country in which people with the most outstanding origins meet each other and forever change their own destinies and the nation’s course. Alcione Araújo was born in Minas gerais in 1948. An award-winning author, he writes novels, essays, articles, stage plays and screenplays for Brazilian and foreign TV channels as well as for the cinema, being responsible for some of the most important Brazilian films, as Two-edged Knife (Faca de dois gumes, 1989) and Happier than Ever (Nunca fomos tão felizes, 1984). He writes a column in Estado de Minas newspaper and participates actively in the Brazilian intellectual life. Alcione won the Jabuti Prize, the most important literary award in Brazil, in 2005, for his work Urgente é a vida. Works ❤ Nem Mesmo Todo o Oceano – 1998, Record Pássaros de Vôo Curto – 2008, Record ♣ Urgente é a Vida – 2004, Record Escritos na Água - 2006, Editora Leitura w Theatre by Alcione Araújo (Vol. I: Simulações do Naufrágio; Vol. II: Visões do Abismo; Vol. III: Metamorfoses do Pássaro) – 1999, Civilização Brasileira A Caravana da Ilusão – 2000, Civilização Brasileira Doce deleite – Civilização Brasileira (to be published) Deixa que eu te ame – Civilização Brasileira (to be published) Por Que sou gorda, Mamãe? • Why Am I Fat, Mum? CíNTIA MOsCOvICH Highlights – Fiction A writer puts on forty-eight and a half pounds in only four years. How could this have happened? How could she have completely lost control of her own body and never even realize it? Could the roots of the problem lie in her past, in the family history, in all the love - and hate - shared by children and their parents? These are the questions that guide Why Am I Fat, Mum? (Por que sou gorda, mamãe?), journalist Cíntia Moscovich’s highly praised new novel. As the narrator searches for the reasons why she put on so much weight so quickly, she embarks on a journey through memory focused on her Jewish family of European immigrants, and especially on her strained relationship with her mother. At the end of this very personal and often painful journey, not only does she find her own lost body, but also the strength to become a full-fledged writer. The narrator’s quest is also a universal search for ways to be happy inside one’s own skin, carried out sensibly and often hilariously by one of the most original voices in new Brazilian literature. Born in Porto Alegre in 1958, Cíntia Moscovich reviews books for the daily newspaper Zero Hora and has worked as translator, copy-editor, press assistant, literary consultant and teacher, as well as having directed Rio grande do Sul’s state Book Institute. Her first solo work, the short story collection The Kingdom of Onions (O Reino das cebolas), was shortlisted for the Jabuti award. She is also the author of a well-praised novel, Two Equals (Duas iguais) and additional volumes of short stories. Works ❤ Duas iguais – 2004, Record Por que sou gorda, mamãe? – 2006, Record ♣ O reino das cebolas – 1996, L&PM, new edition Record (to be published) Arquitetura do arco-íris – 2004, Record Anotações durante o incêndio – 2000, 2006, Record Essa coisa brilhante que é a chuva – Record (to be published) H Mais ou menos normal – 2008, Publifolha Foreign Editions PORTUgAL Duas Iguais – 2006, Pergaminho Arquitetura do arco-íris – Pergaminho (to be published) SPAIN Duas Iguais – Tusquets (to be published) Duas Iguais (BookClub Edition) – Circulo de Lectores (to be published) Author’s Website: www.cintiamoscovich.com Satolep • Satolep Highlights – Fiction vITOR RAMIL In one’s way to the Brazilian South, the landscape acquires the weight of a dream. The mist, the prairie, the cold wind: all the elements become stronger as we get closer to Satolep, a city that Vítor Ramil created inspired on Pelotas, his home town. Satolep (an anagram of the word Pelotas) begins with a return. On his 30th birthday, the photographer Selbor returns to the city where he was born, the damp and phantasmagoric Satolep. The novel portrays the narrator’s rediscover of his past, where he meets real characters of Pelota’s history, as the writer João Simões Lopes Neto, the poet, journalist and playboy Lobo da Costa and the filmmaker Francisco Santos, director of one of the first fiction movies realized in Brazil. The narrator himself has a real origin: he was inspired in Clodomiro Carriconde, a photographer that largely retracted the life in Pelotas in the beginning of the twentieth century. Selbor’s images are completed by small texts, snapshots of fog, poetry and hallucination that he found inside a briefcase forgotten by a young man in the train station. He soon discovers that these short reports were based in future pictures that he had yet to take. With all its mystery and passion, these words follow the narrator’s steps through the city, offering a poetic narrative of his history and proving that Selbor and the city which he wanted so much to abandon in his youth are made of the same substance, as two elements intrinsically connected. Vítor Ramil was born in Pelotas, Rio grande do Sul, on April 7th., 1962. Since the eighties, he works as a singer and songwriter, releasing his first record when he was only eighteen. He has released seven albums and his songs were recorded by international artists like Mercedes Sosa and Jorge Dexler. Works ❤ Pequod – 1999, (new edition to be published) Cosac Naify A Estética do Frio – 2004, Satolep Livros Satolep - 2008, Cosac Naify Foreign Editions FRANCE Péquod – 2003, L´Harmattan Uma Ponte para Terebin • A Bridge to Terebin LETíCIA WIERzCHOWskI Highlights – Fiction A Bridge to Terebin (Uma ponte para Terebin) is based on the life of the author’s grandfather, Jan Wierzchowski, who emigrated to Brazil as a young Polish man in 1936, three years before Poland’s invasion by the Nazis. After discovering the letters sent to Jan by the family he had left behind, Letícia decided to retrace her grandfather’s steps and examine the price we sometimes pay for our freedom. In the poetic, moving style that has become her trademark, the author recounts Jan’s one-way journey. She observes both the joy and the sorrow he encountered, when the dream of a brand new life was mixed with the pain of leaving behind his country and his relatives, many of whom he would never see again. Unable to return to Poland for tweny-eight years – even though he fought in the war for his country’s liberation – Jan led a fascinating, brave existence, and his granddaughter Letícia does honour to this life in her splendid novel. The author was also inspired by the story of her relatives who stayed in Poland during the somber years of german occupation. Letícia Wierzchowski is among the best contemporary Brazilian authors. Born in Porto Alegre in 1972, she has over ten books to her credit. They include the hugely successful novel House of the Seven Women (A casa das sete mulheres), translated into five languages and adapted into a TV series aired in over twenty-three countries. Letícia also used her Polish origins as inspiration for the acclaimed book of children’s tales The Wawel Dragon and Other Polish Tales (O dragão de Wawel e outras lendas polonesas). Works ❤ [email protected] – 1999, LP&M ♣ O anjo e o resto de nós – 1998, 2001, Record A casa das sete mulheres – 2002, Record H O pintor que escrevia – 2003, Record Cristal polonês – 2003, Record Um farol no pampa – 2004, Record Uma ponte para Terebin – 2005, Record De um grande amor e de uma perdição maior ainda – 2007, Record Prata do tempo – 1999, 2008, Record Os aparados – Record (to be published) Anuário dos amores – 1998, Artes e Ofícios O dragão de Wawel e outras lendas polonesas (with Anna Klacewicz, ill. André Neves) – 2005, Record Todas as coisas querem ser outras coisas (ill.Virgílio Neves) – 2006, Record O menino paciente (with Marcelo Pires, ill. Virgílio Neves) – 2007, Record Era outra vez um gato xadrez (ill. Virgílio Neves) – 2008, Record Highlights – Fiction Foreign Editions gERMANY Das haus der sieben – 2009, Random Bertelsmann / Blanvalet gREECE A casa das sete mulheres – 2005, Enalios Publications ITALY La casa delle sette donne – 2004, R.C.S Libri PORTUgAL A casa das sete mulheres – 2003, Âmbar SPAIN La casa de las siete mujeres – 2004, Ediciones B; 2005, Byblos (pocket) El pintor que escribía – 2005, Ediciones B Un faro en la pampa – 2008, Ediciones B YUgOSLAVIA A casa das sete mulheres – Alfa Narodna (to be published) Uma Vida Inventada • An Invented Life MAITê pROENçA Highlights – Fiction According to Angolan writer José Eduardo Agualusa, in An Invented Life (Uma vida inventada), Maitê Proença shows herself as a character that any writer would love to create. To his astonishment, she treated all the characters with the same energy with which she treated her own destiny, and this is reflected in the way she tells her history. “A great one”. In this book, Maitê Proença blends literature and life, truth and imagination, playing hide-and-seek with the reader. More urgent than the reality, however, is the narrative game in which Proença embraces us. “At heart, I actually am an average person”, confesses Maitê right before awing us with astonishing histories, using a strong and personal voice, being extremely lyric in some occasions, and dramatic in others. With great doses of humor and irony, Proença composes remarkable passages, intermingled with the tale of a girl who wanted to discover the world and that, by doing so, discovered herself. Maitê Proença was born in São Paulo and studied in Campinas and Paris. In 1980, she started to work as an actress and quickly established a career in the cinema, theater and television. For a few years, Maitê published articles in Época, one of the most important Brazilian weekly magazines. Her first book, Between Bones and Writing (Entre ossos e a escrita) was released in 2005 in Brazil and Portugal. In 2006, Proença played a role in Lost and Found (Achadas e perdidas), a stage play written by herself, and in 2008 she wrote, together with the dramaturge Luís Carlos góes, the play The Girls (As meninas). She has a daughter, Maria, and lives in Rio de Janeiro. Works ❤ Entre Ossos e a Escrita – 2005, Agir Uma Vida Inventada – 2008, Agir Uma Vida Inventada (Audiobook) – 2008, Plugme Foreign Editions PORTUgAL Entre Ossos e a Escrita – 2005, Oficina do Livro PORTUgAL Uma Vida Inventada – Oficina do Livro (to be published) Author’s Website: www.maite.com.br Aprendiz do Tempo • Apprentice of Time Highlights – non-fiction IvO pITANguY Apprentice of Time (Aprendiz do tempo) is the latest book of memories by cosmetic surgeon Ivo Pintaguy. It is a compelling account of his childhood in Minas gerais, through his early years in hospitals around the world to his life today as one of the world’s most respected surgeons. We learn that young Ivo lived in such close contact with nature and animals – his hometown, Belo Horizonte, was then a city surrounded by wild forests –that he took to walking around town with a boa constrictor coiled around his neck until the snake was killed by his cousin. There are vivid recollections of his cultivated mother and his father, who was a general surgeon and inspired Ivo’s passion for the medical profession. The author recounts his move to Rio de Janeiro in his early twenties to study, and then to the US, France and England to attend several specialization programmes, before returning to Brazil to start a brilliant career in cosmetic surgery. Apprentice of time reveals the life and thoughts of one of Brazil’s most interesting and celebrated personalities. Born in Belo Horizonte in 1926 and known around the world as one of the greatest names in cosmetic surgery of all times, Dr. Ivo Pitanguy is the head of a famous clinic in Rio de Janeiro and teaches as an invited professor at over one hundred institutions - hospitals, universities and associations - in forty-eight different countries. He is the author of a vast body of work in his field, and was awarded the prize of best scientific book of the year for Aesthetic Surgery of the Head and Body. His memoirs have been published in Brazil, France and Spain. Works Foreign Editions ♦ FRANCE Les chemins de la beauté, J.C. Lattés gERMANY Aesthetic Surgery of the Head and Body – 1981, Springer Verlag Plastische Eingriffe an der Ohrmuschel, Springer Thieme Verlag SPAIN El arte de la belleza, grijalbo USA Plastic Operations of the Auricle, Springer Thieme Verlag Mamaplastias – guanabara Koogan Atlas de cirurgia palpebral – Colina/Revinter Direito à beleza – Record Aprendendo com a vida – Best Seller Aprendiz do tempo – 2007, Nova Fonteira O Bom Conflito • The Good Conflict Highlights – non-fiction MARIA TEREzA MALDONADO Can a conflict be something good? In dictionaries, it is synonym of heated discussion, collision, war. However, the conflicts are part of our lives and take place even in the most harmonic relationships. Differences between people are shown inside families, schools, neighborhoods and offices. They might cause chronicle struggles and violent acts. On the other hand, they can be a prolific environment for the rise of good solutions. The “good conflict” concept is connected with the usage of divergences to create satisfactory solutions for both parts, improving the quality of the relationship. The big secret of conflict resolution is the ability to see beyond divergences, look for resemblances and concentrating efforts to expand these common points. Maria Tereza Maldonado has a vast experience in human relations psychology and is convinced that everyone is capable of learning how to dissolve conflicts in a clever and peaceful way. Born in Rio de Janeiro in 1949, Maria Tereza Maldonado is a psychologist with over thirty years of experience and has written twenty-five books. She has taught at universities and coordinated hospital teams, and currently works on social projects with NgOs and as a family therapist. Her much-requested conferences deal with behavior, family ties and personal development. Her clear, light, and compelling style exposes complex ideas in a simple way and allows theoretical concepts to be used practically. Works Os construtores da paz – 1997, Moderna Amor e cia.: E tudo isso acontece no fundo da gente – 2000, Saraiva As sementes do amor: Educar crianças de 0 a 3 anos para a paz – 2003, Planeta Brasil Maturidade – 2004, Planeta Brasil Pensando na vida – 2005, Planeta Brasil Cá entre nós: Na intimidade das famílias – 2006, Integrare Histórias da vida inteira – 1994, 2006, Integrare Palavra de mulher – 2007, Integrare O Bom conflito – 2008, Integrare Recursos de relacionamento para profissionais de saúde (with Paulo Roberto Bastos Canella) – 2003, (new edition to be published) Tecmedd H Viver melhor – 1998, Saraiva Redes solidárias – 2001, Saraiva Florestania: A cidadania dos povos da floresta – 2002, Saraiva Nos passos da dança – 2006, Saraiva t Psicologia da gravidez – 1976, Saraiva Nós estamos grávidos – 1978, (new edition to be published) Integrare Comunicação entre pais e filhos – 1981, 2008, Integrare Casamento término e reconstrução – 1986, (new edition to be published) Integrare Vida em família – 1989, Saraiva A arte da conversa e do convívio – 1992, Saraiva Os caminhos do coração – 1995, Saraiva Author’s Website: www.mtmaldonado.com.br O Pai Invisível • The Invisible Father Um cara do nosso tempo e seus filhos adolescentes A modern day man and his teenage children Highlights – non-fiction kLEDIR RAMIL The father arrives at home and a big party is taking place. Nobody told him anything, nobody asked if he would allow it. He tries to talk, but nobody listens. People pass by him and don’t even look back. The few ones that apparently notice his presence act like they don’t see him. He has disappeared. He has become an invisible father, the kind of man who is only remembered when money - or a lift - is in need. In The Invisible Father, Kledir gathers comic and tragic situations that almost every father has already experienced, and shares them with the reader, using great doses of grace and sincerity, without any trace of resentment. In counterpoint, Kledir remembers his own youth, leading us to moments in which the parents of today were children and teenagers. A time when nobody talked about toxic waste or global warming, when there were no videogames and friends got together on the streets and squares to play soccer and hide-and-seek, TVs were black and white and teenagers survived happily without IMs, SMSs or cell phones. The Invisible Father is a funny panorama about the insanity of being a teenager’s father in this new century and a delightful portrait of a family’s relationships in two distinct times. Kledir Ramil was born in Rio grande do Sul in 1953 and lives in Rio de Janeiro. Singer and songwriter, he is acclaimed in Brazilian popular music for being part of Kleiton & Kledir duo. But, first and foremost, he is Julia and João’s father. Works ❤ O Pai Invisível – 2006, Objetiva ♣ Tipo Assim – 2003, RBS Pais, Filhos e Cia. Ilimitada • Parents, Children & Unlimited Co. Highlights – non-fiction gLADIs bRuN Parents, Children & Unlimited Co. (Pais, filhos & cia. ilimitada) is psychologist gladis Brun’s first incursion into writing. It offers a ‘survival guide’ for the modern world where families can no longer be defined as a single unit consisting of mother, father and children living under the same roof, but have become much more complex couples living separately, children with only one parent or siblings from different relationships, multiple family names. Using the example of a ficticious family, gladis analyzes characters and situations to unveil these often strained relationships involving stepmothers, stepfathers, half-siblings and the children of divorce. Contrary to the nostalgic opinion claiming that the family is a thing of the past, the author shows that, however complex all these new relationships might be, it remains possible to live in harmony even while tackling the difficult subjects of financial issues between divorced parents or the rituals and expectations of love. gladis Brun was born in Rio de Janeiro in 1942. She trained in Psychology and was one of the founders of the Brazilian Family Therapy Association (ABRATEF) in 1984. gladis is a member of the American Family Therapy Academy (AFTA) and often teaches seminars and workshops in Brazil and abroad. In 2002, she received the prestigious AFTA Award for Innovative Contribution to Family Therapy. gladis is also the author of Loves Me, Loves Me Not: Portraits of Divorce (Bem-me-quer, mal-me-quer: Retratos do divórcio). Works ♦ Pais, filhos & cia. ilimitada – 1999, Record Bem-me-quer, mal-me-quer: Retratos do divórcio – 2001, Record 23 Histórias de Um Viajante • 23 Tales of a Traveller Highlights – Children & Ya MARINA COLAsANTI 23 Tales of a Traveller (23 histórias de um viajante), is renowned writer Marina Colasanti’s latest fairy tale book. In the novella - whose stories can be read both independently and as a single continuous tale - the author draws from her own travels which influenced her way of seeing the world, teaching her to watch everything with eyes that are simultaneously foreign and native. The book tells of a traveller knight who arrives at a kingdom where he finds a prince living in complete isolation. After hearing some of the traveller’s stories, the prince becomes fascinated by them, and decides to join the stranger in a journey through the lands he owns, but has never seen. As they proceed, and the traveller unravels his tales, Marina shows how narrative itself can be a journey, while her lyrical style takes the readers on voyages of their own. Like a box containing other boxes, astonishingly filled with mythical elements, her fascinatingly modern tales overlap and intertwine to forge a common meaning. Born in 1937 in Asmarra, Eritrea, to an Italian family, Marina Colasanti came to Brazil as a young girl. She is internationally acclaimed for her short stories, poems, books for children/YA and essays, and has worked in journalism, advertising and translation, as well as being a highly-praised artist. Among her many titles are the award-winning short story collection A Marvellous Idea (Uma idéia toda azul) and the collection of essays Ships to Faraway Lands (Fragatas para terras distantes). Works ♣ ♦ Contos de amor rasgado – 1986, (new edition to be published), Record Eu sei mas não devia – 1995, Rocco O leopardo é um animal delicado – 1998, Rocco Um espinho de marfim e outras histórias – 1999, L&PM A casa das palavras – 2002, Ática A morada do ser – 1978, 2004, Record Os Últimos Lírios no Estojo de Seda – 2006, Editora Leitura E por falar em amor – 1984, Rocco Aqui entre nós – 1988, Rocco Fragatas para terras distantes – 2004, Record ♠ Rota de colisão – 1993, Rocco Gargantas abertas – 1998, Rocco Fino sangue – 2005, Record Passageira em trânsito – Record, (to be published) n Entre a espada e a rosa – 1992, Salamandra Penélope manda lembranças – 2001, Ática Doze reis e a moça no labirinto do vento – 1982, 2001, global Uma idéia toda azul – 1979, 2002, global A moça tecelã – 2004, global 23 histórias de um viajante – 2005, global Com Certeza tenho amor – (no prelo), global Do Seu Coração Partido – (no prelo), global Highlights – Children & Ya H O lobo e o carneiro no sonho da menina – 1985, global Um amigo para sempre – 1988, Quinteto O menino que achou uma estrela – 1988, 2000, global Será que tem asas? – 1989, Quinteto A mão na massa – 1990, Salamandra Ana Z., aonde vai você? – 1993, Ática Longe como o meu querer – 1997, Ática Cada bicho seu capricho – 1992, 2000, global O verde brilha no poço – 1986, 2001, global Um amor sem palavras – 1995, 2001, global A amizade abana o rabo – 2002, Moderna Ofélia, a ovelha – 1989, 2003, global Uma estrada junto ao rio – 1985, 2005, FTD O homem que não parava de crescer – 1995, 2005, global A menina arco-íris – 1984, 2001, 2007, global Minha tia me contou – 2007, Melhoramentos Minha ilha maravilha – 2007, Ática Poesia em quatro tempos – 2008, global Foreign Editions ARgENTINA CATALONIA Ruta de colisión – 2004, Ediciones Del Copista Uma idéia toda azul / Doze reis e o labirinto do vento – Ediciones Xerais, (to be published) COLOMBIA Fragatas para tierras lejanas – 2004, grupo Editorial Norma El hombre que no paraba de crecer – 2005, grupo Editorial Norma Lejos como mi querer – 2006, grupo Editorial Norma Entre a espada e a rosa – Babel Libros (to be published) FRANCE Une idée couleur d’azur – 1990, L’Harmattan LATIN AMERICA Um verde brilla en el pozo – 2004, global La jovem tejedora – 2005, global Un amor sin palabras – 2005, global PORTUgAL Um espinho de marfim e outras histórias – 2005, Figueirinhas SPAIN Penélope manda recuredos – 2004, Anaya Uma idéia toda azul/Doze reis e o labirinto do vento – Anaya (to be published) A Comédia dos Anjos • The Comedy of Angels Highlights – Children & Ya ADRIANA FALCãO The Comedy of Angels (A comédia dos anjos) is a book that starts with the end of a life: one fine morning in May 1958, Dona Maria Madalena Teresa de Jesus Rita de Cássia Santana does not wake up. It is the eve of the World Football Cup in Sweden, where Brazil will go on to win for the first time and leave the whole world dumbstruck with the dribbles of garrincha and goals of Pelé. As family and friends gather to mourn Dona Madalena, however, it becomes clear that the old lady is not ready for eternal rest: rather, she is bound on preventing her 24-year-old daughter Edith, mother of young Arthur, from falling for the charms of her exhusband, a football player named Paulo who will soon be called to play for Brazil in the World Cup. Adriana Falcão happily confirms that Dona Madalena’s character was inspired by her own mother. Written in the light, playful style that has already become the author’s trademark, The Comedy of Angels is proof that good literature and hearty laughter can go hand in hand. Born in Rio de Janeiro in 1960 and raised in Recife, Adriana Falcão was first noticed for her TV scripts. She wrote three popular series for globo network, as well as a successful adaptation of Ariano Suassuna’s Play of Our Lady of Mercy (O auto da compadecida). Her first novel, The Machine (A máquina, 1999), an irresistible fable about undying love, was made into a successful film directed by Adriana’s husband João Falcão. Her latest book is an adaptation of Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream where the plot is transposed to Bahia during Carnival. Works ❤ A máquina - 1999, Objetiva A comédia dos anjos - 2004, Planeta Sonho de uma Noite de Verão - Coleção Devorando Shakespeare – 2007, Objetiva ♣ O doido da garrafa - 2003, Planeta O homem que só tinha certezas – 2007, Planeta ♠ Pequeno dicionário de palavras ao vento (ill. José Carlos Lollo) – 2003, Planeta A arte de virar a página – Objetiva, (to be published) H Mania de explicação (ill. Mariana Massarani) - 2001, Salamandra Luna Clara e Apolo Onze (ill. José Carlos Lollo) - 2002, Moderna PS Beijei (with Mariana Veríssimo) - 2004, Salamandra A tampa do céu – 2005, Salamandra Sete Histórias para Contar – 2008, Moderna Foreign Editions ITALY Luna Chiara Apollo 11 - 2005, Fanucci Editore MEXICO Mania de Explicação (ill. Mariana Massarani) – Fondo de Cultura – (to be published), PORTUgAL Luna Clara e Apolo Onze – 2006, Âmbar A comédia dos anjos – 2007, Âmbar A Distância das Coisas • The Distance of Things Highlights – Children & Ya FLávIO CARNEIRO Pedro is a fourteen year-old boy who lost his father while still very young, and just received the bad news that his mother had died in a car accident. He has no choice but to live with his uncle, who forbids him from attending his mother’s funeral service and doesn’t even allow him to visit her grave. Suspicious, he believes that adults are hiding something from him, and decides to act like a detective. In his search for the truth, and with a little help from his friend Mariana, Pedro investigates his uncle’s privacy, rescues conclusive moments shared with his mother and discovers secrets that will change his whole life. For The Distance of Things, Flávio Carneiro won the Barco a Vapor Award, from Editora SM. Born in goiânia 1962, Literature PhD and professor Flávio Carneiro is an award-winning writer of novels, short stories and books for children, YA and adults. He collaborates as literary critic with Rio de Janeiro’s newspapers Jornal do Brasil and O Globo. His two film scripts have been awarded prizes by the Department of Culture. His most celebrated book for young readers, Lalande, was deemed ‘Highly Recommended’ by the Brazilian National Young Adult and Children’s Book Foundation. Works ♦ ❤ O campeonato – 2002, Objetiva A confissão – 2006, Rocco ♣ Da matriz ao beco e depois – 1994, Rocco H A corda, Rita! (ill. Rogério Nunes Barros) – 1986, globo A casa dos relógios (ill. Carlos gomes de Freitas II) – 1999, FTD Lalande (ill. Rui de Oliveira) – 2000, global O livro de Marco (ill. Avelino guedes) - 2000, global Prezado Ronaldo – 2006, Edições SM A Distância das Coisas – 2008, Editora SM Devagar & Divagando – Rocco (to be published) Entre o cristal e a chama: ensaios sobre o leitor – 2001, Editora UERJ No país do presente: ficção brasileira no início do século XXI – 2005, Rocco Author’s Website: www.flaviocarneiro.com.br Histórias de Bruxa Boa • Tales of a Good Witch LYA LuFT Highlights – Children & Ya Lya made her debut in children’s literature with Tales of a good Witch (Histórias de bruxa boa). In this story full of imagination, bound to mesmerize children in the same way she did adults, Lya explores the fantastic world of children’s imagination with the inspiration and help of grand-daughter Isabela. The book presents unusual and fun tales taken straight from a child’s fantasy, where little girl Tathinha learns from her grandmother, good witch Lilibeth, how to protect people with her spells and to scare the evil witches who live in an ugly, dirty and rat-infested hole Lya is considered the greatest Brazilian publishing phenomenon of recent years and has been translated into ten foreign languages. This success can be explained by her style, which remained every bit as sophisticated, and above all by the depth of her insights and by her fine sensibility. Works ❤ ♣ A asa esquerda do anjo – 1981, 2003, Record As parceiras – 1990, 2003, Record O ponto cego – 1999, 2003, Record Reunião de família – 1982, 2004, Record O quarto fechado – 1984, 2004, Record Exílio – 1988, 2005, Record A sentinela – 1994, 2005, Record Pensar é transgredir – 2004, Record Em outras palavras – 2006, Record O Silêncio dos amantes – 2008, Record ♠ O lado fatal – 1988, Siciliano Secreta mirada – 1997, 2005, Record Para não dizer adeus – 2005, Record H Histórias de bruxa boa (ill. Susana Luft) – 2005, Record A volta da bruxa boa (ill. Susana Luft) – 2007, Record Criança Pensa (with Eduardo Luft, ill. Susana Luft) – Record (to be published) ♦ Histórias do tempo – 2000, Siciliano Mar de dentro – 2002, Record O rio do meio – 1996, 2003, Record Perdas & Ganhos – 2003, Record Perdas & Ganhos (Audiobook) – 2008, Plugme Highlights – Children & Ya Foreign Editions CATALONIA Pèrdues i guanys – 2005, grup 62 DENMARK Perdas & ganhos – Bazar Forlag (to be published) FINLAND Perdas & Ganhos – Bazar Forlag (to be published) FRANCE Pertes & Profits – 2005, Editions Metaillié gERMANY Gezeiten des Glücks – 2005, Ulstein HOLLAND Geven em Nemen – 2005, De Boekerij ISRAEL Perdas e Ganhos – 2006, Kinneret-Zmora ITALY Perdite e Guadagni – 2006, RCS Libri/Bompiani NORWAY Perdas & Ganhos – Bazar Forlag (to be published) PORTUgAL Perdas & Ganhos – 2004, Editorial Presença Pensar é transgredir – 2005, Editorial Presença A asa esquerda do anjo – 2008, Pergaminho As parceiras – 2008, Pergaminho Reunião de família – Pergaminho (to be published) O Silencio dos Amantes - Planeta Portugal (to be published) SPAIN Pérdidas y ganancias – 2005, El Pais/Aguilar SWEDEN Perdas & Ganhos – Bazar Forlag (to be published) UK Losses and Gains – 2007, Vermilion YUgOSLAVIA Dobici i gubici – 2006, Laguna O Menino que Queria ser Celular • The Boy Who Wanted to Be a Cell Phone Highlights – Children & Ya MARCELO pIREs What would lead a boy to want to be a cell phone? Marcelo Pires explains how it could happen in a story about parent – child relationship. The Boy Who Wanted to Be a Cell Phone (O menino que queria ser celular) is a touchy portrait of how a parent’s lack of dialogue and proximity can affect a child. The protagonist’s sadness is so deep that he decides to leave behind his life as a boy to become a cell phone to get more attention from his parents, who are constantly glued to their phones. With remarkable determination, the boy tries to approach all the phones that he finds at home. And, to his surprise, he finds out he can establish communication with them, learning also that there are a lot of other children who also want to become cell phones. Therefore, the phones help the boy to send a message to every parent, all over the world: “Today, just for a chance, connect yourself to your children. Shut down your cell phone!” In these times when people are always connected to electronic devices – often lacking the time for the attention, care and love their children need – this book speak straight to the heart, making us pause and think. A talented and well known publicist, Marcelo Pires was born in Porto Alegre in 1963, and together with his friends Camila Franco and Jarbas Agnelli, published another children book, Liga-Desliga (Companhia das Letrinhas, 1992). Works ❤ [email protected] (with Leticia Wierzchowski) – 1999, L&PM ♠ Anotações a Partir do Meu Astrolábio – 2004, Ameopoema H Liga-Desliga (with Camila Franco / il. Jarbas Agnelli) – 1995, Companhia das Letrinhas O Menino Que Queria Ser Celular (il. Roberto Lautert) – 2007, Melhoramentos O Menino Paciente (with Leticia Wierzchowski, il. Virgílio Neves) – 2007, Record Foreign Editions SPAIN Enciende y apaga (il. Ximena Maier) - 2007, grupo Anaya Operação Resgate em Bagdá • Operation Rescue in Bagdad Highlights – Children & Ya LuCIANA sAvAgET When American troops invaded Bagdad in 2003, an ancient secret fraternity, with ramifications all over the world, set up a conspiracy. But it was a conspiracy for the best: the International Society for Fantasy Rescue wanted to save the Arabian literature treasures and characters from the barbarities of war. The society’s members exchanged information by letters, faxes and e-mails, and ended up concluding that the target of this incredible rescue operation should be to save Ali Baba, Sherazade and other unforgettable characters. Operation Rescue in Bagdad (Operação Resgate em Bagdad – A batalha do invisível) blends in the terrible and recent Iraq War events with the fantastic world of A Thousand and One Arabian Nights, as a message to children about the always invincible need to keep dreams and imagination alive. Works Luciana Savaget was born in Rio de Janeiro and is considered one of the most creative contemporary Brazilian children writers. She is the author of more than thirteen children’s books, several of which published in countries like Colombia, Cuba and Palestine. She was elected “Personality of the International Children’s Year” and was winner of the Vladimir Herzog Award of Amnesty and Human Rights. She also works as a journalist. ♣ Meu Padrinho, Padre Cícero (il. Jô Oliveira) – 2006 DCL H Flor sem Nome (il. Rui de Oliveira) – 1988, José Olympio Cambalhoteando no Céu (il. Ana Paula) – 1990, Bertrand Brasil E o Céu Virou Mar (il. Victor Tavares) – 1995, José Olympio Meia Volta, Vamos Ver (il. graça Lima) – 1998, Ediouro Gravata Sim, Estrela Não (il. Victor Tavares) – 2002, DCL Japuaçu e a Estrela de Fogo (il. Lina Kim) – 2002, DCL O Amor de Virgulino Lampião (il. Miadaira) – 2002, DCL O Amor de Maria, a Bonita (il. Miadaira) – 2004, DCL É meu! Cala a boca! Quem manda aqui sou eu! (il. Roger Mello) – 2005, Larousse Dadá, a Mulher de Corisco (il. Miadaira) – 2005, DCL Operação Resgate em Bagdá (il. Thais Linhares) – 2005, Nova Fronteira Sua Majestade, o Elefante (il. Rosinha Campos) – 2006, Paulinas Highlights – Children & Ya Mão Quente, Coração Frio (il. Ivan Zigg) – 2006, Larousse Morrendo de Rir (il. Maurício Veneza) – 2006, Nova Fronteira Não Gosto, Não Quero (il. Roger Mello) – 1993, 2007 Ediouro Gertrudes Trudes Tutudes (il. Salmo Dansa) – 1994, 2007, Nova Fronteira Traça-letra e Traça-tudo (il. Victor Tavares) - 1996, 2007, Larousse A Menina que Vivia no Mundo da Lua (il. Ana Terra) - 2007, Larousse Operação resgate na Jordânia - 2007, Nova Fronteira D. Carminha Cebolinha - A consertadora de sonhos (il. Fabiana Salomão) – 2008, Larousse Enigmas de Huasao (il. gonzalo Cárcamo) – 2008, global ♦ Maria de Todas as Graças – 1997, Bertrand Brasil Ave-Maria, Mensageira da Paz – 1999, Ao Livro Técnico Foreign Editions COLOMBIA No me Gusta! – 2001, Panamericana Media Vuelta Y Ya Está - 2001, Panamericana El Pájara y la Estrella de Fueg – 2002, Panamericana 1,2,3 Y Ya - 2003, Panamericana Operação Resgate em Bagdá – 2008, Ediciones Dipon Quando Eu Era Pequena • When I Was Little Highlights – Children & Ya ADéLIA pRADO Renowned author Adélia Prado’s first title for children, When I Was Little (Quando eu era pequena) was recently published as part of the re-launch of her entire body of work. Inspired by the author’s own childhood, it combines memories and fiction to tell the story of Carmela, a young girl living during World War II in provincial Brazil. Carmela does not attend school yet, and her father, who works in the railways, builds miniature pieces of furniture as a hobby for his daughter to play. The girl’s pleasures are the simple things in life – nature and animals. It is easy for readers to recognize where many of the patterns that distinguish Adélia’s poetry come from, and similarly to recognize in little Carmela the young Adélia herself. Like the author, the girl is very religious and keenly aware of her surroundings as she describes her grandfather, with whom the family lived for a while, and their financial difficulties during the war - the second-hand clothes, the prayer during storms, and her discovery of poetry. When I was little is beautifully illustrated by Elisabeth Teixeira and aimed at children aged 7-10, but can also be enjoyed by adult readers. Born in Divinópolis, Minas gerais, in 1935, Adélia Prado is a poet, novelist, short story- and crônica-writer who published her first book, Baggage (Bagagem), at age 38, urged by fellow poets Carlos Drummond de Andrade and Affonso Romano de Sant’Anna. She went on to establish herself as a foremost Brazilian author with the stage monologue Mrs. Nuts (Dona Doida), based on her writings and played by Fernanda Montenegro in Brazil, Portugal, Uruguay, Italy and the US. Adélia has fourteen books to her credit. Works ❤ Quero minha mãe – 2005, Record Cacos para um vitral – 1980, 2006, Record Os componentes da banda – 1984, 2006, Record O homem da mão seca – 1994, 2007, Record Manuscritos de Felipa – 1999, 2007, Record ♣ Filandras – 2001, Record Solte os cachorros – 1979,2006, Record ♠ Bagagem – 1976, 2003, Record O coração disparado – 1977, 2006, Record Terra de Santa Cruz – 1981,2006, Record O pelicano – 1987, 2007, Record A faca no peito – 1988, 2007, Record Oráculos de maio – 1999, 2007, Record H Quando eu era pequena – 2006, Record Quarto de Menina • Girl’s Bedroom Highlights – Children & Ya LIvIA gARCIA-ROzA Girls’ Bedroom (Quarto de menina), praised as “Highly Recommended” by the Brazilian National Foundation for Children and Young Adults Books, tells the story of Luciana, a regular girl lost in the age between childhood and adolescence, with a heart full of questions, doubts and pain. Daughter of divorced parents, she has made of her bedroom a secret haven, in which she confides her feelings to dolls and a cricket that lives in a flower pot. Luciana’s life changes when her mother obtains her custody and she has to abandon the apartment in which she lived with her father. She has to get used to a brand new luxurious home and, what’s more, Luciana needs to learn how to construct a relationship with her mother, a woman who is always talking loudly, giving orders and trying to change Luciana into a person she doesn’t want to be. An intellectual man, Luciana’s father is so discrete and quiet that he looks more like a landscape, always beyond her reach, but, at the same time, always there, in the same place, ready to help her whenever she needs. Girls’ Bedroom portrays the female universe in all its shades through the changes of a girl who goes to sleep as a child and, without noticing, wakes up as a woman. In a very subtle way, Luciana conquers the reader’s heart. Psychoanalyst Livia garcia-Roza was born in Rio de Janeiro in 1940. Whilst working as a clinical therapist for over thirty years, she has written many articles on psychoanalysis for several newspapers and magazines. Girl’s Bedroom, originally published in 1995, marks her debut on literature. Livia is married to fellow writer and former psychoanalyst Luiz Alfredo garcia-Roza. Works ❤ Meus queridos estranhos – 1997, Record Cartão-postal – 1999, Record Solo feminino: Amor e desacerto – 2002, Record A palavra que veio do sul – 2004, Record Meu marido – 2006, Record Milamor – 2008, Record ♣ Ficções fraternas (editor) – 2003, Record Filhos e cenas (with Fernando Bonassi) – 2004, Callis Restou o cão e outros contos – 2005, Companhia das Letras A cara da mãe – 2007, Companhia das Letras Era outra vez – Companhia das Letras (to be published) H Quarto de menina – 1995, Record (‘Highly Recommended’ label by FNLIJ) Cine Odeon – 2001, Record A casa que vendia elefante – 2008, Record Todas as Coisas Querem Ser Outras Coisas • All Things Want to Be Other Things Highlights – Children & Ya LETICIA WIERzCHOWskI Inspired by author’s own son who, according to Leticia, taught her how to play again, All Things Want to Be Other Things (Todas as coisas querem ser outras coisas) takes place inside João’s bedroom, starring the things that he keeps there. Leticia says that the idea for the book came in one afternoon that she spent at her son’s bedroom. She says that children always have a transforming view: they don’t see a pen, they see a soldier; they play with the toys and its boxes. Therefore, in a boy’s bedroom, the things you find inside can be anything. Inside that room, many worlds can exist. The bedroom is a circus ring, the outer space, the princesses’ castle. All Things Want to Be Other Things is a great tribute to children’s imagination and the amazing power of perceiving that everything can be seen in a different way. A funny and delightful book. Leticia Wierzchowski was born in Porto Alegre in 1972 and wrote ten other books, including the bestseller The House of Seven Woman (A casa das sete mulheres). The Things That Want to Be Other Things is her second children’s book. Works ❤ [email protected] – 1999, LP&M O anjo e o resto de nós – 1998, 2001, Record A casa das sete mulheres – 2002, Record O pintor que escrevia – 2003, Record Cristal polonês – 2003, Record Um farol no pampa – 2004, Record Uma ponte para Terebin – 2005, Record De um grande amor e de uma perdição maior ainda – 2007, Record Prata do tempo – 1999, 2008, Record Os aparados – Record (to be published) ♣ Anuário dos amores – 1998, Artes e Ofícios H O dragão de Wawel e outras lendas polonesas (with Anna Klacewicz, ill. André Neves) – 2005, Record Todas as coisas querem ser outras coisas (ill.Virgílio Neves) – 2006, Record O menino paciente (with Marcelo Pires, ill. Virgílio Neves) – 2007, Record Era outra vez um gato xadrez (ill. Virgílio Neves) – 2008, Record Highlights – Children & Ya Foreign Editions gERMANY Das haus der sieben – 2009, Random Bertelsmann / Blanvalet gREECE A casa das sete mulheres – 2005, Enalios Publications ITALY La casa delle sette donne – 2004, R.C.S Libri PORTUgAL A casa das sete mulheres – 2003, Âmbar SPAIN La casa de las siete mujeres – 2004, Ediciones B; 2005, Byblos (pocket) El pintor que escribía – 2005, Ediciones B Un faro en la pampa – 2008, Ediciones B YUgOSLAVIA A casa das sete mulheres – Alfa Narodna (to be published) Uólace e João Victor • Uólace and João Victor Highlights – Children & Ya ROsA AMANDA sTRAusz Uólace and João Victor (Uólace e João Victor) is Rosa Amanda Strausz’s most celebrated book for children and exposes the social divide in Brazil through a day in the life of two young children living in the same big city, but who never met. Uólace lives in one of the city’s many slums, while João Victor is a typical middle-class boy. They seem to have nothing in common but, as the story develops, Rosa Amanda shows that, although set apart by a strong social barrier, both children strive to survive and be happy in the same way. Uólace and João Victor won the João de Barro award and was chosen by the National Young Adult and Children’s Book Foundation as one of the best works of 1999. The book was adapted for part of a TV series directed by Fernando Meirelles (City of God) and aired by globo network, and a French edition was published by Éditions Métaillié. The story told in Uólace and João Victor is a very realistic portrait of Brazil’s social differences and a gem for children around the world. Ages 8 and up. Born in Rio de Janeiro in 1959, Rosa Amanda trained as a journalist and worked for several newspapers and magazines before turning to writing. Her first book, short story collection Least Common Multiple (Mínimo múltiplo comum) won the Jabuti award. Rosa Amanda’s true passion, however, is children’s literature, and her fifteen books breach subjects not often present when writing for children such as new family arrangements, strained social relations and urban violence. Works H Mamãe trouxe um lobo para casa (ill. Fernando Nunes) – 1995, Salamandra A coleção de bruxas do meu pai (ill. Fernando Nunes) – 1995, Salamandra Uma família parecida com a da gente (ill. Ivan Zigg) – 1998, Ática Um nó na cabeça (ill. Laurent Cardon) – 1998, Salamandra Deus me livre! (ill. Mirna Maracajá) – 1999, Companhia das Letrinhas Para que serve essa barriga tão grande? (ill. Ivan Zigg) – 2003, FTD Alecrim (ill. Laurent Cardon) – 2003, Objetiva Uólace e João Victor (ill. Pinky Wainer) –1999, 2003, Objetiva Fábrica de monstros (ill. Michele Lacocca) – 2005, global Quanta Casa /Coleção Tião Parada – (ill. Eduardo Albini) - 1998, 2005, FTD O Peixe do Dente de Ouro / Coleção Tião Parada – (ill. Eduardo Albini) - 1998, 2005, FTD O Livro do Pode-Não-Pode / Coleção Tião Parada – (ill. Eduardo Albini) - 1998, 2005, FTD Os Meninos-Caracol / Coleção Tião Parada – (ill. Eduardo Albini) - 1998, 2005, FTD O Caminhão Que Andava Sozinho/Coleção Tião Parada – (ill. Eduardo Albini) - 1998, 2005, FTD Sete ossos e uma maldição – 2006, Rocco Salsicha quer falar (ill. Ivan Zigg) – 1999, 2007, Planeta ♦ Teresa, a santa apaixonada – 2004, Objetiva Highlights – Children & Ya Foreign Editions FRANCE Un garçon comme moi – 2005, Seuil / Métailié UN GARCON COMME MOI – pocket edition - 2005, Seuil / Métailié PORTUgAL Teresa, a Santa Apaixonada – 2005, Oficina do Livro – Casa das Letras Valentina • Valentina Highlights – Children & Ya MáRCIO vAssALLO Valentina is a princess who lives in a castle on top of a hill. She is a pretty girl who laughs easily and leads a happy life with her parents, her garden and the splendid view from her window. But there is one thing Valentina does not understand. Every day, her mother and father go down the hill early in the morning to work, and they only come back at the end of the day. But aren’t her parents a king and queen? They must be, if she is a princess. Since when do kings and queens have to work? Her parents tell her they must go down the hill to make sure their princess can take her dreams into the real world. So one day her parents decide to take Valentina down the hill with them, and the girl is amazed by what she sees: all the girls look the same, dress the same and want the same things - they all want to be a princess. And Valentina feels happy because she knows she is already a princess, up there where she lives, in one of Rio’s poor favelas. Valentina is another lovely tale for readers aged 8 and up created by one of the most celebrated Brazilian writers for children, and beautifully illustrated by artist Suppa. Born in Rio de Janeiro in 1967, Márcio Vassalo spent part of his childhood in the Amazonian region. This experience gave him an innocent outlook on life and a talent for popular language which work as precious allies when writing for children. Books like The Dreamless Prince (O príncipe sem sonhos) and The Boy with Rain on His Hair (O menino da chuva no cabelo) have been internationally acclaimed and helped to build Vassalo’s reputation as a distinguished voice in children’s literature. He also wrote a biography of poet Mário Quintana. Works H A princesa Tiana e o sapo Gazé (ill. Mariana Massarani) – 1998, Brinque-Book O príncipe sem sonhos (ill. Mariana Massarani) – 1999, Brinque-Book O menino da chuva no cabelo (ill. Odilon Moraes) – 2005, global Valentina – 2007, global A fada afilhada (ill. Bebel Callage) – 2001, 2008; global Da minha praia até o Japão – global (to be published) ♦ Nos bastidores do mercado editorial – 1997, Ed. Cejup Mário Quintana – 2005, Moderna Mães: o que ela têm a dizer sobre educação – 2007, guarda-Chuva Brazilian Literature – Classic Authors C arlo s D r u mmond de A ndrade E rico Ver I s s imo Jo ã o C a b ral de M elo N eto MARIO QUINTANA R achel de Q u eiro z Brazilian Literature – Classic authors Carlos Drummond de Andrade Itabira, 1902 – Rio de janeiro, 1987 Regarded by many as the greatest Brazilian poet of all time, Minas gerais-born Carlos Drummond de Andrade produced everlasting works such as Feeling of the World (Sentimento do mundo, 1940) or Love is learned through loving (Amar se aprende amando, 1985). Despite also distinguishing himself as civil servant, a newspaper writer and a translator, he owns his reputation and his huge fan base to verses combining the innovative spirit of first-generation Modernism with self-reflection, social concerns, formal sophistication and, most importantly, a direct dialogue with the reader. Among over twenty volumes of collected poetry, the Poetic Anthology (Antologia poética, 1962), edited by the author himself, is distinctive because the poems are arranged according to the major subjects that define Drummond’s work, building a faithful panorama of his œuvre. Drummond’s equally celebrated short narratives – crônicas - show a more everyday side of the author; his latest collection, When It’s Football Day (Quando é dia de futebol, 2002) – with a foreword by Pelé - is a selection of his best writings on Brazil’s favourite game. Works ♣ Confissões de Minas – 1944, Record Contos de aprendiz – 1951, Record Passeios na ilha – 1952, Record Fala amendoeira – 1957, Record A bolsa e a vida – 1962, Record Cadeira de balanço – 1966, Record Caminhos de João Brandão – 1970, Record O poder ultra jovem – 1972, Record De notícias e não notícias faz-se a crônica – 1974, Record Os dias lindos – 1977, Record 70 historinhas – 1978, Record Contos plausíveis – 1981, Record A lição do amigo: Cartas de Mário de Andrade – 1982 Boca de luar – 1984, Record O observador no escritório – 1985, Record Tempo vida poesia – 1986, Record Moça deitada na grama – 1987, Record Auto-retrato e outras crônicas – 1989, Record Quando é dia de futebol (Edited by Pedro Augusto graña Drummond and Luis Mauricio graña Drummond) – 2002, Record O avesso das coisas – 1987, 2007, Record ♠ Alguma poesia – 1930, Record Brejo das almas – 1934, Record Sentimento do mundo – 1940, Record A rosa do povo – 1945, Record Claro enigma – 1951, Record José e outros (José/Fazendeiro do ar/Novos poemas) – 1954, Record Viola de bolso – 1955 Record Lição de coisas – 1962, Record Antologia poética – 1962, Record Versiprosa - 1967 A falta que ama – 1968, Record As impurezas do branco – 1973, Record Discurso de primavera e algumas sombras – 1977, Record A paixão medida – 1980, Record Brazilian Literature – Classic authors Corpo – 1984, Record Amar se aprende amando – 1985, Record Poesia errante – 1988, Record O amor natural – 1992, Record A vida passada a limpo – 1994, Record Farewell – 1996, Record Declaração de amor (ill. Mariana Massarani/edited by Pedro Augusto graña Drummond and Luis Mauricio graña Drummond) – 2005, Record Boitempo I ( Menino antigo) – 1968, 2006 Record Boitempo II (Esquecer para lembrar) – 1973, 2006 Record H História de dois amores (ill. Ziraldo Alves Pinto) – 1985, Record O sorvete e outras histórias – 1993, Atica A cor de cada um – 1996, Record A palavra mágica – 1996, Record A senha do mundo – 1996, Record Vó caiu na piscina – 1996, Record Criança d’agora é fogo – 1996, Record Histórias para o rei – 1997, Record As palavras que ninguém diz – 1997, Record Rick e a girafa – 2001, Ática Foreign Editions PORTUgAL Obras de Carlos Drummond de Andrade (8 vol.) – Edições Europa América Antologia poética – 2002, Dom Quixote D. Quixote (ill. Portinari) – 2005, Dom Quixote Rick e a Girafa – Campo das Letras (to be published) História de Dois Amores – Campo das Letras (to be published) Antologia de Poemas – Relógio D’Água (to be published) SPAIN O amor natural – 2004, Ediciones Hiperion Sentimento do mundo – Ediciones Hiperion (to be published) FRANCE La machine du monde et autres poèmes – 1990, gallimard Poésie Histoire de deux amours – 2002, Éditions Chandeigne Poèmes – Éditions Chandeigne ITALY Sentimento del mondo – 1987, giulio Einaudi L’amore naturale – 1997, Adriatica Editrice Quando è giorno di partita – 2005, Cavallo di Ferro HOLLAND Farewell – 1996, Uitgeverrij de Arbeiderspers DENMARK 52 Poems – Borgens Forlag Author’s Website: www.carlosdrummond.com.br Brazilian Literature – Classic authors Erico Verissimo CRuz ALTA, 1905 – pORTO ALEgRE, 1975 With over forty books to his credit, Erico Verissimo is a renowned and widely translated Brazilian fiction writer. He had a successful career as a journalist and a teacher, as well as working in international organizations. Erico’s multi-faceted and hugely creative body of work delights readers of all ages and tastes. His series of classic stories for children ushered in several generations of new Brazilian readers, and he is equally cherished by the wider public thanks to best-sellers such as Consider the Lilies of the Field (Olhai os lírios do campo, 1938), a story of lost love and ultimate redemption. The epic Time and the Wind (O tempo e o vento, 1949-61), possibly Verissimo’s most famous work, follows a 200-year old family saga in southern Brazil’s Rio grande do Sul. Packed with action, conflict and romance, this critically acclaimed and widely read series became the author’s masterwork.His stories can also verge on the fantastic, as shown in Incident in Antares (Incidente em Antares, 1971): set in a fictitious town on the shores of river Uruguai, he uses a rebellion of the dead to expose and discuss Brazil’s social and political situation after World War II. Works ❤ O tempo e vento: O continente (02 vols.) – 1949, 2004, Companhia das Letras O tempo e vento: O retrato (02 vols) – 1951, 2004, Companhia das Letras O tempo e vento: O arquipélago (03 vols) – 1961, 2004, Companhia das Letras Clarissa – 1933, 2005, Companhia das Letras Música ao longe – 1934, 2005, Companhia das Letras Caminhos cruzados – 1935, 2005, Companhia das Letras Olhai os lírios do campo – 1938, 2005, Companhia das Letras O senhor embaixador – 1965, 2005, Companhia das Letras Um certo capitão Rodrigo – excerpt from O Continente, vol. 1 – 1970, 2005, Companhia das Letras Ana Terra – excerpt from O Continente – 1971, 2005, Companhia das Letras Incidente em Antares – 1971, 2005, Companhia das Letras Do diário de Sílvia – excerpt from O Arquipélago, vol 3 - 1978, 2005, Companhia das Letras Um lugar ao sol – 1936, 2006, Companhia das Letras Saga – 1940, 2006, Companhia das Letras O prisioneiro – 1967, 2008, Companhia das Letras ♣ Contos – 1942, Companhia das Letras (new edition to be published) Fantoches – 1932, 2007, Companhia das Letras Brazilian Literature – Classic authors H O urso com música na barriga (ill. Eva Furnari) – 1938, 2002, Companhia das Letras A vida do elefante Basílio (ill. Eva Furnari) – 1939, 2002, Companhia das Letras Rosa Maria no castelo encantado (ill. Eva Furnari) – 1936, 2003 , Companhia das Letras As aventuras do avião vermelho (ill. Eva Furnari) – 1936, 2003, Companhia das Letras Os três porquinhos pobres (ill. Eva Furnari) – 1936, 2003, Companhia das Letras As aventuras de Tibicuera – 1937, 2005, Companhia das Letras Outra vez os três porquinhos (ill. Eva Furnari) – 1939, 2003, Companhia das Letras ♦ Gato preto em campo de neve – 1941,2006, Companhia das Letras A volta do gato preto – 1946, 2007, Companhia das Letras México – 1957, Companhia das Letras (new edition to be published) Israel em abril – 1969, Companhia das Letras (new edition to be published) Um certo Henrique Bertaso – 1972, Companhia das Letras (new edition to be published) Solo de clarineta – 2 volumes –1973, 1976, 2006, Companhia das Letras Foreign Editions (selected list) FRANCE Le temps et le vent – Albin Michel PORTUgAL Olhai os lírios do campo – 2001, Dom Quixote SPAIN As aventuras do avião vermelho – 2005, Ambar Outra vez os três porquinhos – 2005, Âmbar O urso com música na barriga – 2005, Âmbar A vida do elefante Basílio – 2005, Âmbar Os três porquinhos pobres – 2005, Âmbar Rosa Maria no castelo encantado – 2005, Ambar Clarissa – 2006, Âmbar Incidente em Antares – 2006, Âmbar O tempo e o vento: O retrato (02 vols.) – 2007, Âmbar O tempo e o vento: O continente (02 vols.) – 2007, Âmbar O tempo e o vento: O arquipélago (03 vols.) – 2007, Âmbar ROMENIA Incidente em Antares – 2002, Editura Polirom O tempo e o vento: O continente (02 vols.) – Machado Libros (to be published) O tempo e o vento: O retrato (02 vols.) – Machado Libros (to be published) O tempo e o vento: O Arquipélago (03 vols.) – Machado Libros (to be published) Clarissa – Machado Libros (to be published) Saga – Machado Libros (to be published) O resto é silêncio – Machado Libros (to be published) Brazilian Literature – Classic authors João Cabral de Melo Neto RECIFE, 1920 – RIO DE jANEIRO, 1999 The strongest Brazilian contender for the Nobel Prize, poet João Cabral was raised in Recife and moved to Rio de Janeiro in 1942, the year he launched his first poetry collection, Stone of Sleep (Pedra do sono). He had an important career as a diplomat in Europe, South America, Africa and the Caribbean. With verses emphasizing rationality, João Cabral gave a new vigor to Brazilian poetry and became one of its key references. He was admitted to the Brazilian Academy of Letters in 1968. With a distinctive process of poetical construction, rational and precise, he viewed poetry as the result of an objective attitude towards concrete reality; this accounts for his strict formal style. The best-known piece in his rich body of work, Death and Life of Severino (Morte e vida Severina, 1955) follows the journey of a man fleeing the dry lands in search of a better life. Wherever he goes, Severino faces death, poverty and hunger, but the birth of a child comes as an ultimate symbol of hope. João Cabral won numerous awards for his work including the Luís de Camões, the highest reward of the Portuguese-speaking literary world. Works (new editions of all other titles to be published by Objetiva/Alfaguara) ♠ Serial e outros poemas – 1960-1961, Alfaguara (new edition to be published) Melhores poemas de João Cabral de Melo Neto (edited by Antonio Carlos Secchin) – 1985, global Sevilha andando e outros poemas – 1987-1990, Alfaguara (new edition to be published) O Artista inconfessável (Infância e Juventude; Viagens; Sevilha, Espanha; Recife, Pernambuco e Retrato do Artista) – 2007, Alfaguara O Cão sem plumas – (Pedra do Sono; Os três mal-amados; O engenheiro; Psicologia da Composição; O cão sem plumas e Primeiros poemas) 2007, Alfaguara Morte e vida Severina – (O Rio; Paisagens com figuras; Morte e Vida Severina e Uma faca só lâmina) – 2007, Alfaguara Auto do frade – 2007, Alfaguara A educação pela pedra – (Quaderna; Dois Parlamentos; Serial e A Educação pela Pedra), 2008, Alfaguara ♦ Prosa – 1997, Alfaguara (new edition to be published) Brazilian Literature – Classic authors Mario Quintana ALEgRETE, 1906 – pORTO ALEgRE, 1994 Mário de Miranda Quintana was the poet of simple things. He did not feed worries about the critics because, according to his own words, poetry was a necessity. He was born in the small town of Alegrete, south of Brazil, and moved to Porto Alegre, the state capital, while he was still young, to finish his studies. From the 20s onwards he was a columnist in major newspapers, and in 1940 made his literary debut with a book of poems, A Rua dos Cataventos (Cataventos Street). Quintana worked many years for Editora do globo, a pioneer bookstore and publishing house directed by the renowned writer Erico Verissimo. There, he translated works by authors like Charles Morgan, Marcel Proust, Voltaire, Balzac, Virginia Woolf, guy de Maupassant, Aldous Huxley, Somerset Maughan, graham greene and Joseph Conrad. In his poetry, there is always a pessimist tartness mixed with great doses of tenderness for a world that, according to his eyes, is as contradictory as it is amazing. In 1981, Mário Quintana received the Jabuti Prize, the most important Brazilian book award, as the literary personality of the year. He is one the most read, loved and acclaimed poets in the country. Quintana died in 1994, but his work is more alive than ever. Once, when asked to talk about his life, Mario Quintana said: “Well... I’ve always thought that confessions are only acceptable when made through an artistic medium. My life is in my poems, my poems are myself, I have never added a single comma that was not part of a confession”. In that sense, to read Mario’s poems or, rather, to learn about his life has been a pleasure which many generations of Brazilians of all ages have enjoyed. Works ♠ Poesias – 1962, globo Prosa & Verso – 1978, globo Os Melhores Poemas (org. de Fausto Cunha) – 1983, global Preparativos de Viagem –1987, globo Velório Sem Defunto – 1990, globo A Rua dos Cataventos – 1940, 2005, globo Canções – 1946, 2005, globo Sapato Florido – 1948, 2005, globo O Aprendiz de Feiticeiro – 1950, 2005, globo Espelho Mágico – 1951, 2005, globo Esconderijos do Tempo – 1980, 2005, globo Brazilian Literature – Classic authors A Cor do Invisível – 1989, 2005, globo Apontamentos de História Sobrenatural – 1976, 2006, globo A Vaca e o Hipogrifo – 1977, 2006, globo Baú de Espantos – 1986, 2006, globo Porta Giratória –1988, 2007, globo Nova Antologia Poética –1981, 2007, globo Só Meu – poemas selecionados por Elena Quintana – 2008, global Para Viver com Poesias (seleção e organização de Márcio Vassallo) – 2008, globo 80 Anos de Poesia – 1986, 2008, globo ♣ Da Preguiça como Método de Trabalho – 1987, 2007, globo Caderno H – 1973, 2008, globo H O Batalhão das Letras – 1948, globo Pé de Pilão – 1975, Ática Nariz de Vidro (org. Mary Weiss) – 1984, Moderna Lili Inventa o Mundo – 1983, 2005, global Sapo Amarelo – 1984, 2006, global Sapato Furado – 1994, 2006, global Eu Passarinho – Para gostar de Ler - 2006, Ática Foreign Editions ITALY Poesie di Mario Quintana – 2007, Zouk (Bilíngüe) Il colore dell’invisibile - 2008, graphe.it Edizion Para viver com poesia (org. Márcio Vassallo) - graphe.it Edizioni (to be published) Brazilian Literature – Classic authors Rachel de Queiroz FORTALEzA, 1910 – RIO DE jANEIRO, 2003 Novelist and short-story writer Rachel de Queiroz is a major representative of the Brazilian Regionalist literary movement, and was the first woman admitted into the Academy of Letters in 1977; she also worked as a journalist, a playwriter and a translator, as well as acting as Brazil’s representative for the UN. In 1957, Rachel was awarded the prestigious Machado de Assis Award for her over twenty works including novels, short stories, crônicas, plays and books for children and young adults. After growing up in a farm in the north-eastern state of Ceará, she stunned the Brazilian literary scene at the age of 20 with masterwork 1915 (O Quinze, 1930), whose unadorned, powerfully realistic style recounts the struggle of a family fleeing the severe drought of 1915 to find a better place to live in the Amazon. Along the way, hunger, exhaustion, and the unexpected solidarity of a few generous strangers leave their mark. Decades later, Rachel would once again portray the people of her homeland in Maria Moura’s Notebook (Memorial de Maria Moura), the saga of a family girl who becomes a fearsome warrior leading seasoned warriors in a quest for revenge. Works ❤ O Quinze – 1930, 2004, José Olympio João Miguel – 1932, 2004, José Olympio Caminho de pedras – 1937, 2004, José Olympio Galo de ouro – 1950, 2004, José Olympio Memorial de Maria Moura – 1992, 2004, José Olympio As três Marias – 1939, 2005, José Olympio Dora, Doralina – 1975, 2005, José Olympio ♣ A donzela e a moura torta –1948, José Olympio (new edition to be published) O homem e o tempo – Mapinguari – 1964, José Olympio (new edition to be published) O caçador de tatu (selection by Herman Lima) – 1967, José Olympio (new edition to be published) As terras ásperas – 1993, José Olympio (new edition to be published) Cenas brasileiras – 1997, Ática A casa do morro branco – 1999, José Olympio (new edition to be published) Falso mar, falso mundo: 89 crônicas escolhidas – 2002, José Olympio (new edition to be published) Melhores crônicas (edited by Heloisa Buarque de Hollanda) – 2004, global Um alpendre, uma rede, um açude: 100 crônicas escolhidas – 1958, 2006, José Olympio Existe outra saída sim – 2003, 2007, Edições Demócrito Rocha Brazilian Literature – Classic authors H Xerimbabo (ill. graça Lima) - 2002, José Olympio Memórias de menina (ill. Mariana Massarani) - 2003, José Olympio O menino mágico (ill. Laurabeatriz) – 1969, 2004, Caramelo Cafute e pena-de-prata (ill. Maria Eugênia) – 1986, 2004, Caramelo Andira (ill. Suppa) 1992, 2004, Caramelo w Lampião: A beata Maria do Egito – 1953, 2005, José Olympio Foreign Editions FRANCE Dora, Doralina – 1980, Éditions Stock Jean Miguel – 1984, Éditions Stock L’année de la grande sécheresse – 1986, Éditions Stock Maria Moura – 1995, Métaillié gERMANY Das Jahr 15 – 1978, Bibliothek Suhrkamp Die drei Marias – 1994, Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag Maria Moura – 1998, Schneekluth ITALY Memorial di Maria Moura – 2006, Cavallo di Ferro SPAIN Tierra de silencio – 1995, Alba Editorial USA The Three Marias – 1963, University of Texas Press Dora, Doralina – 1984, Avon Books Sample Translations Fiction A COMÉDIA DOS ANJOS • The Comedy of Angels, by Adriana Falcão A VIDA SEXUAL DA MULHER FEIA • Sex Life of the Ugly Woman, by Claudia Tajes DE CADA AMOR TU HERDARÁS SÓ O CINISMO • From Each Love You Shall Get Nothing But Scorn, by Arthur Dapieve ELITE DA TROPA • Elite Squad, by Luiz Eduardo Soares, André Batista and Rodrigo Pimentel O HOMEM QUE MATOU O ESCRITOR • The Man Who Killed the Writer, by Sérgio Rodrigues O VÔO DA gUARÁ VERMELHA • The Flight of the Red Ibis, by Maria Valéria Rezende POR QUE SOU gORDA, MAMÃE? • Why Am I Fat, Mum?, by Cíntia Moscovich SATOLEP • Satolep by Vitor Ramil UMA PONTE PARA TEREBIN • A Bridge to Terebin, by Letícia Wierzchowski Non-fiction PERDAS E gANHOS • Losses & Gains, by Lya Luft ADRIANA FALCãO A Comédia dos Anjos • Comedy of Angels Sample translations – Fiction Translated from the portuguese by Fernanda Abreu In spite of all the controversy surrounding the case, it is practically a proven fact: when Maria Madalena Teresa de Jesus Rita de Cássia Santana was found dead, on that morning of May, 1958, the window of her room displayed a small sample of the terrible storm unleashing outside - some twenty to thirty square feet of water. It is said the rain began at about four in the morning and went on for many many hours, a phenomenon caused by the arrival of autumn’s first cold front. The heavier clouds had no choice but to cast down electrical discharges together with thunder and flashes of lightning. Bolts cracked. Houses crumbled. Roofs went flying into the air. Streets became rivers. Rivers experienced a different sort of enthusiasm, much more appropriate to a geographical accident belonging to the family of waterfalls. Many umbrellas were opened, thinking maybe they were flowers, since it is unusual for umbrellas to know they only unfurl because someone has opened them. The word ‘storm’ has appeared in many versions of this story, sometimes with reference to some fact confirming a statement, other times as a simple comment. Testimonies vary in some points, but the emotional state of witnesses should be considered. Edith, 24, born in Rio de Janeiro, separated, woke up to thunder ‘at around ten past nine’. She jumped out of bed. According to her statement, while getting dressed, she wondered: ‘Why did mummy not call me at half past eight?’ She concluded dona Madalena was perhaps particularly anxious that day, busy nursing her own worries, which was totally like her. It didn’t even occur to her that something more serious than that might have happened. Mentally, she started to go through the order of things. Day of the week: Monday. Things to do that Monday: finish the letter she had been writing Marcelo for months now, trying to explain why she wanted to break up their relationship. ‘I’ll do it today and not one day later’, she promised herself. ‘What if I left it until next week?’, suggested the ‘other one’. Ever since she was a child she felt that way, as if there were two Ediths, ‘herself ’ and ‘the other one’. The problem was that neither she nor the other one had a single ounce of self-confidence, and they kept inverting their roles, to such an extent that Edith no longer knew if she was ‘herself ’, if she was the ‘other one’, or if she was both. ‘I’ll think about it later’, she decided, not knowing if the decision was the other one’s or her own. She left the room. Before going into the bathroom, she overheard part of the song the housemaid sang every morning: a heart-felt tune whose lyrics were the words of a dialect combining Portuguese, guarani and the English of corny love songs. Consolação Popyguá, 69, housemaid, born in the Paraguayan chaco, at first declined to comment on the strange events following that morning. She explained her own silence with a single sentence: ‘Things concerning the unknown are the unknown’s own personal business.’ We know that when Edith entered the kitchen Conceição was too busy with sustained notes, kitchen appliances and multipurpose ideas to wish her ‘good morning’. She told a pan she had just scrubbed, ‘There, now you look new’, and then she mumbled, ‘I woke up when it was still dark only because of the light’, probably referring to a bolt of lightning. Sample translations – Fiction Before resuming her song, she made a plain remark: ‘What about dona Madalena? It will soon be lunchtime and she is still not up.’ An exaggeration. The clock on the wall showed a quarter past nine in the morning, seventeen minutes past the hour to be exact; Edith was very precise in her account. She said that before going into her mother’s bedroom she took her stomach medicine ‘with a sip of warm milk’, which must have taken two minutes at the most. Then she climbed the stairs. Another thirty or forty seconds. According to her calculations, she must have entered dona Madalena’s room at about twenty-one minutes past nine. And there it was. Artur, 5, woke up to a scream which kept screaming in his ear forever, like all screams death pulls from the throat of people. ‘I ran to see why Mum was screaming, and then she closed grandma’s door to keep me from going in, but dona Consolação went in, and then she came back out, and they were both crying, Mum said grandma had died, and dona Consolação said I must be happy ‘cause grandma was now in heaven and she was going to meet grandpa gaspar, and then Mum started to cry even more, and then she told dona Consolação to get me a glass of water and sugar which I poured in the sink and then she went into the living-room to talk on the phone.’ Marcelo, 26, unemployed journalist, spare-time philosopher, and practically bankrupt businessman, woke up with the phone ringing. ‘It took me some time to believe what Edith was telling me. Everyone who knew dona Madalena was absolutely certain she was never going to die. It was not like her to die.’ Paulo, 25, separated, football player, was late for an important engagement when he got his son’s call. ‘I happily answered the long-distance call for I knew it must be Artur, but I was obviously upset at the news. I was at least a little bit upset, I swear.’ Confetti must have been awake all through the night, watching over his mistress, and at no time did he show any sign of distress. According to Edith, by the way, when she went into her mother’s room he was calmly lying by the corpse’s feet, wagging his tail. Dona Madalena was lying in bed in the same position she usually slept in, hugging a pillow which when alive she used to call ‘gasparito’, but her eyes were wide open. And her eyes remained open until dona Consolação closed them at ten o’clock sharp, ‘a pretty hour for ending a visit’, during a posthumous anointing of the sick which included candles, oils and the words ‘may the Lord forgive you all your trespassings in this silly life down here’. The family doctor came with Marcelo, who still had a few vague hopes. Hope number one: that everything was just a misunderstanding, and dona Madalena was only sleeping soundly under the effect of alcohol or tranquillizers. Hope number two: that the problem was reversible, who knows, maybe a cardiac massage? Hope number three: that this all was a nightmare. It wasn’t. Dr. Alberto’s verdict mentioned ‘instant death by hypoxia’ or something of the sort, and as he himself calculated the said hypoxia must have occurred between five and six in the morning, give or take. ‘The tragedy’, ‘the disgrace’, ‘the event’ or ‘the news’ (terms varied according to the disposition of speakers) was quickly spread. It was soon the only subject of conversation in the neighbourhood. ‘It’s life.’ ‘The person’s there, then we look and she’s gone.’ ‘Dona Madalena, of all people.’ ‘So young.’ ‘So strong.’ ‘So good.’ ‘It’s so good of you.’ ‘Drinking did it.’ ‘Smoking did it.’ ‘Negligence did it.’ “A collapse did it.’ ‘No doubt it was a spell someone cast on her.’ ‘Maybe the nervous system?’ ‘She was never right in the head.’ ‘But she had a great heart.’ ‘A violent heart attack.’ ‘Poor thing.’ ‘It’s Edith I pity, the poor woman.’ CLAuDIA TAjEs A Vida Sexual da Mulher Feia • Sex Life of the Ugly Woman Sample translations – Fiction Translated from the portuguese by Fernanda Abreu FOREWORD I am that woman who crosses the room to make some copies, or gets up to have some coffee from the thermos, and overhears two colleagues whispering in a supposedly low voice: “If you had to choose between Ju and death, who would you pick?” I am what everybody calls an ugly woman. Not very ugly, a kind of woman some claim to have her own charms. I have read over and over how Cleopatra was very ugly, and she nevertheless had Julius Caesar and Mark Antony and hundreds of other men she wanted. But obviously being a queen must have helped some. At the firm’s annual holiday party, when every girl wins some sort of award: Best Ass, Best Mouth, Best Tits, Best Thighs, and other honours bearing no relation to dedication or effort - only to god, and perhaps a personal trainer - I am the one who never gets anything. Best Neck would already have made me happy. Or possibly Best Ears. I could never win Best Nose: mine is rather large for society’s current standards. Maybe things would be different had I been born in Cleopatra’s time. I am that woman who changes her hair and it’s always for the worse, she who goes out in a new outfit and nobody notices, she who spends entire parties pretending to dance with friends when she’s actually dancing alone. What few people know is that, for me, all this has a scientific purpose: I have for some time now been studying the sexuality of the ugly woman, a subject which, as far as I can recall, has never been treated in women’s magazines, afternoon TV shows for housewives, or self-help books. It is important to stress that the subject of my observations is myself, although there are common aspects between the experiences I will describe here and those of other women - all ugly, naturally. Stories heard since I was a girl in family reunions, confessions of friends, and all those conversations unintentionally overheard or intentionally listened to in public toilets, crowded buses and bars filled with young and old sad women. The following chapters elaborate on all this, and they have led me to conclude, at the end of my study, that the ugly woman is not only an aesthetical deformation. The ugly woman is a frame of mind. 2. THESES ON THE UgLY WOMAN 2.1. The Name Parents to a newborn baby girl can never conceive that some day their daughter will become an ugly woman. However, maybe due to some kind of instinct, they will seldom give that girl a pretty name. There is no ugly woman named Nicole, and it is rare for one of them to be called Julia, Leticia, Barbara, Yasmin. On the other hand, there are countless ugly Crisleides, Rosineides, greicelanas, Claudiomaras, and all hybrids combining two or three names in a single, unheard-of proper noun. I myself have been registered under the name Jucianara and, whenever I nagged at my mother for giving me that name, she invariably answered: ‘No name would have suited you better.’ 2.2. Genesis I begin this chapter by ignoring my childhood, for I consider all children to be pretty, although my colleagues, friend and family in general, siblings and parents did not seem to share this opinion. My grandmother on my mother’s side was always complimenting me for being nice, while never failing to mention her other grandchildren’s looks. I regard this today as a consolation prize, just like my most glorious achievement at school: being crowned Miss Congeniality. A prize category usually inspired by the jury’s compassion rather than the contestants’ assets. When I left childhood behind I carried with me all the pounds I should have shed in parks and playgrounds where I jumped and ran. These Sample translations – Fiction were joined by many more as I grew up, and from ages eleven to seventeen I can say I gained much more volume than I did height - a pattern I would stick to for life. My skin, my hair, my mouth, my legs never resembled those same body parts I used to see since a tender age in ads for soaps, lotions and shampoos. And, although I eventually came to use those same products, they never improved my looks. My hair remained rebellious, growing upright and sideways. My legs did not become long and smooth. My breasts, which went from nonexistent to inconvenient at a time the world was not yet ruled by implants, felt the effects of gravity day after day. Finally, my pimples did not disappear with the oily cosmetics that should have made me prettier. Perhaps they even multiplied and came to resist all kinds of treatment, truly mutant pimples, as I used to call them. To achieve the picture, a wardrobe in no way whatsoever influenced by fashion dictated my style. The clothes my mother chose, always pants and shirts, would no doubt have suited better any one of my brothers. The rest was handed over by an older cousin, which always had me looking like last fall/winter/spring/summer’s current fashion. If women were sporting loose trousers, I would wear the tight ones my cousin no longer wanted. When girls wore mini-skirts, I, like a radical Muslim, would hide myself under long skirts straight out from last season. I must mention that the fact my middle-class family did not have the financial means or even the information necessary for me to dress more appropriately was not in any way determining in making me look worse. I remember a very ugly classmate, Andremara, daughter of a car dealer, who would parade everyday clad in garments from the very same stores I most admired. Far from justifying the father’s investment, the clothes only enhanced the bad looks of that stout and short girl, while at the same time causing the jealousy of all the other girls. Every single one prettier than she, except for me. Every single one poorer than she, just like me. On the day Andremara came to class wearing overalls of outer space inspiration, similar to those an actress on a TV soap had worn some days before, she was nicknamed Futuristic Sausage. And until the day she left the school at the end of the term, in tears, she was never called anything else. ARTHuR DApIEvE De Cada Amor tu Herdarás Só o Cinismo • From Each Love You Shall Get Nothing But Scorn Sample translations – Fiction Translated from the portuguese by Fernanda Abreu Week One Michael Stipe yelled one last time: ‘And I feel…’ One hundred voices bellowed the answer: ‘Fine!’ Bernardino thought: ‘fuck me’ Two forty-four in the morning, January 14th, 2001. The clock should have stopped right then and there, petrified, as if it were eight fifteen in the morning of August 6th, 1945 in some Hiroshima of the soul. Because right then, six minutes and three seconds into the live version of It’s the end of the world as we know it (And I feel fine), Bernardino understood the bald singer’s verdict. At that precise moment his eyes landed on Adelaide’s. They didn’t simply meet her eyes, their eyes didn’t lock: they just landed on hers. Softly like a little bird. While the theme-song of his Armageddon died on the speakers and the band left the stage, saying thanks both in English and Portuguese for all the applause, Bernardino found himself becoming the character of a second-rate ad. Man looks at girl, girl looks at man, crowd parts and they slide towards each other on trolleys and tracks operated by the film crew and unseen by the viewer. At the beginning, however, it was unclear what that scene was trying to sell. But Bernardino, creative director of Milano & Associates, better known in the market as M&A, Bernardino, the genius of Napoleon III margarine, knew at once that this was the end of his world - for the third time - and he felt fine. That’s why he thought: ‘fuck me’ ‘Dino, hiii, what a coincidence…’ Protocol kisses, cheeks touching. ‘We could as well have made a date… Terrific concert, uh? I loooved it.’ ‘Fuck me!’ ‘I came with some rocker friends of mine but we got lost in the crowd. Too bad for them ‘cause I’m the one driving…’ She laughed, slightly tipsy, looking around. ‘The cell won’t work, no calls get through. They’ll have to manage.’ ‘Fuck me…’ ‘Looks like your vocabulary has shrunk since we last met, uh?’ ‘Oh, I’m sorry, Adelaide.’ oh fuck me ‘Do you have any idea how long I’ve been waiting to hear these guys live?… Almost twenty years, since I heard Pilgrimage on old Fluminense FM for the first time. Were you in diapers? Not quite? It went like boum! Too bad they didn’t play that one. It was like lightning. I’m wired, I’m a bit drunk, I’m thrilled, I’m happy. All of which accounts for being a retard. I’ll be all right in a bit, sorry.’ ‘I was kidding… I can understand your situation, even if I hardly know R.E.M. But I’ll want to know more, ok?’ Another look around, less anxious this time. ‘Are you here on your own?’ ‘I am. My wife goes to bed really early.’ ‘So… Did you take the bus? Or… a taxi?!” ‘Yeah. I took a taxi, damned expensive.’ ‘And how are you getting back? Did you keep it waiting?!’ Bernardino shrugged and shook his head at the same time. ‘I am a nice girl, I can give you a lift into town. Let’s go?’ ‘oh fuck me’ Anti-despair pause. ‘Thanks, yeah, I was just wondering how I’d manage to leave this place. You’re the only familiar face I’ve seen. But I think we should wait a bit, let the crowd drain, everyone will be stuck in traffic anyway.’ do something ‘I could use a drink, how about you? We could get a draft beer in one of those booths. They’re Kaiser, but right now I could even stomach a Malt 90. You’re not old enough to know, but Malt was the brand sponsoring the Sample translations – Fiction last festival… Well, anyway, it seems to be the most efficient way to talk the kids out of getting pissed: get a horribly bad beer to pay your bills and give it exclusive rights to sell inside the concert area. People hardly touch a drink.’ Adelaide was shaking her head up and down, sticking her tongue out and smiling. Her hair was dark red, not ginger, and it fell straight over her ears in light waves, making her look like the cocker spaniel in a Disney cartoon. ‘lady adelady adelaide light of my life flame in my flesh’ They walked almost in silence up to the booth in front of the main gate, towards the parking lot where the car waited, focusing more on avoiding the moving crowds than on discussing the song Everybody hurts. Naturally, many people had had the same idea, and there was still a huge line at the booth. Nevertheless, even though they knew that at the end of the rainbow there would be only two plastic cups filled with lukewarm Kaiser beer, they both threw themselves at the drink as if reaching the free zone of a tag game. Bernardino stared at the girl’s cheeks, beautiful cheeks, stretching to the sides of her face, slighlty narrowing her light-brown eyes. Although she had not yet graduated, Adelaide was already a myth of the advertising market. She made a sensation not because of her professional skills - impossible to measure in the menial tasks she performed at M&A, such as searching for images or scanning pictures - but because, on top of being beautiful, very beautiful, and having a good body, a very good body, she was nice, extremely nice. He had recognized these and other qualities of hers since the day the girl had introduced herself claiming to be one of his fans during one of those boring cocktail parties attended only by people of the same profession, during which people almost invariably drank too much to chase away boredom and office colleagues. For him, however, Adelaide was the work of a contemporary painter he did not like, a scribble by Mirò. He saw it, he acknowedged its beauty, he experienced a fleeting aesthetical pleasure, he recognized its value and then he moved on to the next painting in the long gallery of nice women for whom you feel nothing. Now that she was a trainee in the art department of the agency where he worked, whenever they met in the lift Bernardino would prolong the conversation just to imagine that some onlooker might think: ‘He’s doing her.’ It was an ego boost to be seen with a beauty like that. But, no. He was not doing her, nor did he fancy doing her. Until Michael Stipe decided on his disgrace. At that precise moment, during the music festival Rock in Rio III, in the half-darkness of that field in Jacarepaguá, Adelaide was illuminated with a stroke by Rembrandt and she became another picture, one of those pictures we fall in love with. LuIz EDuARDO sOAREs, ANDRé bATIsTA AND RODRIgO pIMENTEL Elite da Tropa • Elite Squad Translated from the portuguese by Renato Rezende, with paul Heritage Sample translations – Fiction Excerpt from the chapter “Friendly Fire” A glade in Serra do Mar, wintertime, 3:00 AM, a few years before After riding horseback for one hundred kilometers, without harness or rest, starved and thirsty, completely depleted by physical exhaustion, with raw thighs and butts, we had the option of sitting in a brine bowl or not. Experience had taught us that sitting down was best, even at the price of stabbing pain. Some fainted from pain. Nevertheless, it was better. Whoever thought of sparing himself could not move the next day: the wounds became inflamed and covered with pus; thighs, testicles and buttocks would swell. As a result, being immobilized, the man failed the test. And the worst was the humiliation of the discharge ritual: he had to dig a grave and simulate his own death, lying down at the bottom of the hole. Let us then skip the brine, because the best part comes next - or the worst part, depending on the point of view. While some horses die from fatigue - I am not exaggerating, they do die -, food is served. But if you are thinking of a large and tasty meal, you are wrong. The food is thrown over a canvas on the ground - remember that we are deep into the countryside and this is a winter night. We have two minutes to eat. And I mean two minutes. With the hands. Eat what you can, as you can – this is the motto. Anything goes. At such moments we realize that, reduced to our minimum physiological common denominator, we humans are all similar to each other as well as similar to the inferior mammals. The fight for survival is an ugly thing to see, and worse still to undergo. But after the storm, comes the calm, as well as after an extreme physical experience come contemplation, abstraction and intellectual improvement. Now, try to imagine the following: a group of filthy, muddy men, reeking of horses, with flayed testicles, butts and thighs burning, exhausted to the last drop of energy, still hungry and thirsty, black nails full of dinner vestiges, greasy hands, all forced to listen to a long theoretical and boring class on anti-guerrilla tactics, with no reference to actions, only to the fundamental concepts. Then add the following ingredient: the class was given in a deliberately hypnotic tone. We were a group of unhealthy sufferers, sleepwalkers, wraiths. We stared wide-eyed, knowing that the slightest nap would exact a high price. Amâncio did not resist and lowered his head, intoxicated with sleep. The instructor rose slowly, and went to him. He was ordered him to squat on a trunk. The instructor took a grenade from his belt, pulled the pin and placed the grenade on the dull-witted student’s right hand. A slip would be the end of the brave pack. From then on, we did not take our eyes off Amâncio - all watching our friend’s vigil. Fright woke up us as the best bitter hot coffee could not. Excerpt from the Chapter “Thousand and one Nights” The Police Battalion of Special Operations, BOPE to the intimate, arrives at the war scenario. We are hungry for invading slums, totally turnedon. Excuse me for speaking like this, but I am here to tell the truth, right? You will soon discover that I am an educated man, with a level of education that few people obtain in Brazil. Maybe you will be amazed when I tell you that I attend a law graduation course in a college, speak English and have read Foucault. But that is for later. I will take the liberty of speaking in all frankness, and, you know, when we are sincere we get carried away and not always our words are sober or elegant. If you are waiting for a well-mannered testimony, forget it. Best to close this book right now. Excuse me, but I get annoyed with people who expect at the same time the truth, and a gentleman’s speech. The truth has to be evoked, called, and it only comes without restrictions, refusing to filter that voice that comes from the heart. Therefore, the truth is much closer to a common man’s speech than to court etiquette. This testimony is like my house. It will be beautiful, sublime and horrendous, as I am, as has been my Sample translations – Fiction life. And as your life is also, most probably. Welcome, the house is yours. In the beginning, you will find some things weird, but later you will get used to them. I also found things weird at the beginning. When I joined the police, I found so many things strange! But soon I got used to them. We do get used to almost anything. Therefore, my dear friend, - can I call you that? - fasten your seatbelt and let’s go. The first history happens at the Jacaré slum. It was more or less like this. We arrive in Jacaré full of love -if you understand me - and full of disposition. We hardly leave the vehicle and two junkies run into us - because the vehicle stopped exactly after the curve of the main slope. I was a lieutenant then, and in command of the patrol. They did not have time to make themselves invisible or to try an escape. I caught the taller one by the arm and shook him a bit so that the son of a bitch would wake up and notice that he had fallen into a mousetrap. He was unarmed and had a few of screws of cocaine packets in his pocket. --So the little fairy is here to snort the “white”, yeah? Maybe the poof also likes to attend protest marches all dressed up in white, asking for peace, ah? Answer me, “mané’ (sucker). --No sir. --No sir what? Did you not buy charlie or do you not like peace protest marches? --I don’t sell, sir. I bought only for my personal use. --Ah! It’s for personal use, then it is OK, right? I pulled an extinguisher from one of our vehicles and unloaded it at the subject’s nostrils. He looked like a rissole: --So you want snow? You want the white stuff? Here it is, animal. Well, at this point I must admit that I felt hot and could not control myself. But I only gave a few blows, because I had this great idea. I ordered Rocha to stop beating the other junkie. --Come here, the two of you. On your feet, looking at me. Heres, my cell phone. You have three options: to call dad asking him to come and pick you up, first option; to eat a dozen hard eggs, each one, without drinking water, second; to take a trashing is the third. Which one will it be? The two chose the eggs. I knew it. The last thing a junkie wants is for his father to find out. What they did not know is that the eggs were in the vehicle since the previous day, due to a slum occupation that BOPE was conducting. In the scorching carioca summer, in January, the eggs certainly corresponded to a good beating. god writes straight with crooked lines. Free will was respected. Even so, divine intention was fulfilled. Please, do not think that I am religious. This is pure prejudice. Nor that every policeman or thief that mentions god is religious. Do you see? It is not only the policeman that is prejudiced, after all. Speaking of prejudice, mark in your notebook that I am black. Black in the politically correct meaning of the word, because, from the merely physical point of view, I am mulatto, actually. But I insist in making it clear - no pun intended - that I am black and I do prefer that you think of me as black, OK? The problem is that there were only a dozen eggs, forcing me to improvise. But I am very creative, in all modesty. Therefore, the solution was ingenious. While the shortest junkie quietly swallowed the eggs, before vibrant cheers from my men, the other was buried to the neck in the garbage dumpster. Tell me... an interesting sentence, was it not? If, at that moment, you feel aghast and would like to evoke human rights, I think it would be better for you to close the book, dude, because you at risk of feinting in a little while. Well, actually, I don’t want you to close the book, nor I would like for you to have a bad impression of me. Don’t take what I say too seriously. Sometimes, I speak whatever comes to mind, and I end up passing a false image of myself, as if I were heartless, perverse, or something like that. But it is not the case. When you know me better, you will see that it is not like that at all. I only insisted on telling the story because the end is very funny. It was like this: I was going down the slum exhausted; it had been one hell of a night. More than three hours hunting low lives, with no result. Two soldiers of my unit were waiting in the vehicle. From a distance, I could hear their laughter. When I approached, they pointed the flashlight to the garbage dumpster, where we could see the junkie’s head, buried in shit up to his neck. --What are you doing there, dude? I asked. --You ordered me to stay here. -- You can fucking leave. I swear that I had forgotten. If it were not by the noise made by the rats, the boys would not have seen him either. And if they had not seen him, he might still be there today. Excerpts from the chapter “Black Tag and Blue Ribbon”1 I am not part of a comedy, rest assured. The Mangueira case is interesting. I mean, it is good that you know me a little better. And get to Reference to government-controlled medication, which displays a black tag on the package. Sleeping pills are black tagged, and policemen usually have to take medication to sleep. 1 Sample translations – Fiction know my BOPE colleagues. The previous story could be misleading. Above all because, nowadays, if we speak of police, everybody immediately thinks of absence of limits, traffic of influence, extortion and corruption. The episode of the garbage dumpster ends up sounding sort of ambiguous, and you may have the impression that, if the crack heads’ parents had appeared, my colleagues and I would have charged a sum to free the assholes. I want to make this clear at once: that sort of thing does not happen in BOPE and never did. Actually, there was one case or another, but the colleagues themselves found a way of expelling those responsible, before our honor was defiled. Beating up low-lives, executing criminals, this is our department, this is what we do. But there are no business deals, no sir. With us, there are no deals. It is funny and sad at the same time - that even the language of lowlives and corrupt police officers becomes increasingly similar. In the end, if you look more closely, the money is the same, the motivation is the same, and everything ends up in one single package: the police sell the weapons to drug dealers, and then borrow them for the media show of political exhibitions. The following day, the police return the weapons after charging a fee from the drug dealers. Those weapons are used against the police itself, but the bunch that sells them could not care less for the consequences. In the daily routine, when the BOPE does not act, the corrupt group of the military police negotiates a percentage for the sale of the drugs, and collects daily. Once in a while, somebody breaks the agreement, and shootings start. For this reason, it is important that I am entirely transparent, so that you can separate the wheat from the chaff. With the BOPE there are no deals. And if you forgive my lack of modesty, we are the best urban war troop in the world, the most technical, the better prepared, and the strongest. And I am not the one saying it: the Israelis come here to learn from us; the Americans also. This high quality is due to many factors, one of which is that there is no other place in the world where you can practice everyday. We are about one hundred and fifty men, approximately. Whenever this number was increased, we had problems. It is not easy to enter the BOPE. This I can guarantee. Not everyone is suited. We take great pride in the black uniform and in our symbol: the knife nailed to the skull. Criminals tremble before us. I won’t deceive you: with criminals, there is no argument. At night, for instance, we don’t take prisoners. During night incursions, if we see a low-life, he is going to the ditch. I know that this policy is not right. But now it is too late. We kill or we die. Before the implementation of this policy, many years ago, a low-life would surrender when he felt outnumbered or fenced in. However, the order of shooting to kill, without accepting surrender, caused a paradoxical effect: it increased resistance and violence against the police. Evidently, the subject knows that surrender is of no use, and then he fights to the death. At least he can delay death and take somebody with him. Consequently, the number of reports alleging resistance followed by death increased substantially and these are the records of civilians’ deaths in confrontation with the police. On the other hand, the number of murders of police officers multiplied. For revenge. That most sickening type of revenge, directed towards an entire corporation. A mirror of the revenge practiced by ourselves, sometimes against a whole slum community. Blood is a poison. The more it is spilled, the more it fertilizes hate. And the wheel does not stop turning. In the end, we all pay the bill, starting with society. That policy was insanity. And now what? We are the heirs to the madness. We have to shoot faster in order not to die. Meanwhile, politicians and scholars discuss the sex of angels. Excerpt from the Chapter “Dolphins of Miami” The verb employed is “to work”. When a subordinate calls the commander on the radio and asks, “Boss, may I work the criminal?” he is asking for authorization to make him sing, or, in other words, to make him tell what he knows. In the same way that the governor is authorizing the Secretary of Public Security to authorize the commander of the Military Police to authorize the policeman, when he says: “Do whatever is necessary to solve the problem.” The governor enjoys the sleep of the just; the secretary sleeps cradled by righteousness; the commander rests as a Christian; and the soldier, at the end of the chain, finds his hands deep in blood. If shit happens, the chain bursts at the weakest link, obviously. The soldier is guilty. The soldier goes to trial. The soldier’s name appears in lists of international entities for human rights. The governor rests ambiguously in peace; the secretary is subtle in preserving his conscience; the commander cultivates euphemisms and resorts to long complicated words to protect his honor and his job. What remains is the soldier, to whom killing is part of an unspoken job description. Curiously, the ambiguity can only be cultivated in the solemn environment of the governor’s Palace, where imposture and violence are sweetened by the elegant choreography of politics. When the scenario is the slum, the rituals are different, less sophisticated. In the war zone, there is no space or time for solemnity and ambivalence. Sample translations – Fiction What was sweet becomes bitter, sours and falls rotten to the ground. We, who operate at the other end of the decision-making chain, always get the rotten fruit and digest it as we can. After all, maybe it’s a lie to say that there are ambivalences only in the court rooms. They are everywhere. They are here among us. And inside us, in me and in you. A way of adapting ambiguity to the war scenario is to be amused with the pain of others. I distrust our laughter. I still hear our laughter in the past, and it sounds strange to me. I am not sure anymore that we liked what we did, and that we really found it funny. But we did laugh; what else? And we tried to enjoy practical tasks with a maximum of creativity. I, for instance, was proud of inventing new modalities. We even had gala nights, with premieres and everything. A show that we really liked was called “dolphins of Miami.” The premiere happened exactly on the night that we took advantage of Juninho’s resistance to test the efficiency and the beauty of the new show. The idea was to soften his “macho” behavior with water. Water is a great energy conductor. The idea was a more or less natural development of the traditional tortures with plastic bags and water: asphyxiation and drowning. Every BOPE member leaves the barracks with his plastic bag, an item already integrated to the basic kit. The bag is placed over the head of the lowlife, tightening the base, which is tied at the neck. The subject suffocates, pukes, and faints. This is the moment for loosening the tie. It is disgusting, but effective. We eagerly worked Juninho for hours and hours. First a beating, a good old thrashing, which usually is enough. Nothing. We inserted wood shreds under his nails. The animal roared, but did not sing. It was then that it occurred to me to premiere the Dolphins. We went to a water tank, and removed two threads from the public illumination network. We ordered Juninho to enter the tank and we dipped the tips of the threads, one on each side. What a beauty! You should have seen it. He jumped with lightness and grace. We only lacked a soundtrack and stage lights. Even so, the son of a bitch didn’t sing. I dipped the threads in water many times. I think he was close to death several times. I became nervous and annoyed. You have to understand, hours and hours, and nothing. The blood went to my head and I began to shoot the tank. I was finally contained by my colleagues. I was out of myself. Luckily for the scumbag, a bullet path suffers a refraction in a liquid medium. If it weren’t for that, he would be fucked. He almost did not survive. I don’t usually miss my shots. I radioed the commander. Told him we were working the scumbag for a long time, without success. I wanted to finish off the scum, but I had to listen my superior, given the special conditions that surrounded the case. He told me to take the subject to DPCA, the police station for juvenile delinquents. I had to take him. The guy was white as a sheet of paper. Sly fellow. Before the police officer, he muttered: “BOPE policemen tortured me” and showed his purple fingers, with the lifted up nails. The officer was a shrewd professional and did not disappoint us. He faced the subject squarely and said: “Oh, yeah? Poor fellow... Are you hurting, are you, sonny” Do you need me to call your Mom, you son of a bitch?” If it were not for cooperation among police professionals, it would be impossible to do our job with a minimum of efficiency. The population complains about us because they think it is easy to maintain order in the city. Hardly do they know that while dinner is being savored in family, in front of the television, in the comfort of home, on the other side, in the underworld, blood is being spilled, the low-lives’ and ours. séRgIO RODRIguEs O Homem que Matou o Escritor • The Man Who Killed the Writer Sample translations – Fiction Translated from the portuguese by Fernanda Abreu First things first: I didn’t write the book everyone thinks I wrote, the one that has been showering me with fame and riches since its publication, just over one year go. Although many people might find that strange – while others might say, I knew it, he never fooled me – the work was entirely finished when I found it, scattered in scrawls all over the walls of a flat just like my own: all I did was edit it. They Kill Writers, Don’t They? was written by a fellow called Austino Lemos, who used to be my next-door neighbour, and is today deceased. I am quite aware that once people believe this my conviction will be harsh, unanimous and just. This is exactly what I’m looking for. Thus it is said, and be advised, seasoned reader, this is not a postmodernist mirror play: the man who now addresses you is a fraud, and I hereby declare that the above mentioned is true. There was a time – almost my entire life – when the literary potential of such a matter would have greatly interested me: reconstructed text, identity exchange and such; to be honest, this is all that would interest me, this literary potential, for that was the way I reacted to any subject. Not anymore. Now that literary potentials make me want to throw up, Austino stands for a once in a lifetime opportunity for change, and this is the only reason why he interests me. The rest – well, the rest is literature. I long for the moment when I will put a full stop to this confession and get up, no longer a character, but a true subject of great actions: go out into the sun, have a smoke at some street corner, loose sight of myself. But this will take a little while yet. The path to follow before liberation includes a second crime and begins at the Faculty of Letters and Literature – a most appropriate place. The idea occurred to me and gabriel Ahlter around the third term and the fifteenth pint of beer: to improve our sex life by creating a workshop where carefully chosen first-year female students could act as inspiration – in the nude or not, but preferably so – for descriptive poems which we decided to name, and I can’t recall whose idea this was, aqualogues. The term was a word play with ‘aquarelle’, and the need to explain it is proof enough of its badness. Being drunk, we found it very funny. Surprisingly, when applied, the general scheme of things was not bad at all. It worked wonderfully – not in regard to quality, for the aqualogues were almost always poor; but, whether carefully chosen or not, we scored with a lot of young ladies. Most of them would whisper in my ear: You write, oh, so well… I believe it was around that time that I got infected with the damned virus, the disease of believing that life only makes sense when it is woven together with art, and vice-versa; Art & Life, in short. Art & Life? A whore’s disease cured by getting fucked, some foulmouthed reader might say, and he shall be right, in a way. But the truth is that Ahlter and I were not interested in getting fucked. In fucking, yes, fuck we did. I remember a great many supple student backs smitten by our intellectual babble, tentative at first, but soon soaring to a truly artistic level, a point of no-return where it, the babble, the come-on, became the work itself, surpassing such by-products as poetry or even sex. Were we cynical? Maybe a little, but it only helped to build a favourable picture: it hasn’t been mentioned yet, but this was the early 1980s, a time when people were still allowed to mix up old hippie stuff, recycled beatnik prattle and trite modernism and re-emerge at the other side, blameless, well-known within a certain circle and carrying an aftertaste of genital fluids. It was my idea – this one I remember, although I can’t imagine what would have inspired me – to dub our duo ‘The Dinosaurs’. No one will remember it today, but there was a time when The Dinosaurs ruled the Earth. We crowded bars with our recitals, gave out Sample translations – Fiction autographs on half-naked bosoms, and exhausted several print runs of copier reproduced booklets while stuffing ourselves with solid, liquid and gaseous intoxicating substances. We were - please excuse the cliché - young. The press loved us for a while, until everyone forgot us, naturally, and The Dinosaurs became extinct. Thus begins my predicament. So much for a predicament, the reader might say, the same illhumoured one as before. This is only normal, he might argue. We live in a pop fragmentary society where memories are short-lived. Who will remember a guy called Radar, who during his first football match as Flamengo’s centreforward scored four goals and became god? Let me tell you one thing: Radar does, Radar remembers. Wherever he might be, alive or dead, I can assure you Radar remembers. Radar shouldn’t have come into this story, but since he has, let him stay: he will be a good symbol of this infectious, acute and chronic recollection ex-famous people carry to their deaths. This, reader, is where predicaments do come from. As do tragedies. But let us not get ahead of ourselves. Because if we did get ahead of ourselves I would have to admit that, surely and in spite of what it may seem, the reason for my plagiarism goes far beyond the base satisfaction of a long-nurtured desire for literary glory. Far beyond. If my reading of Austino is correct, his whole body of work was designed to eschew the irrelevance of the written word and take the leap – the unheard-of, the unconceivable leap – towards action. Compared to that, what does a mere issue of authorship mean? In spite of what it may seem this is no attempt at defence, for I swear I don’t care for this, rather the opposite: they should condemn me; they should spit on my name. However, you must understand that I was ill, and Austino Lemos cured me. At some point I thought this was his true work, to cure me. He was the murderer of at least one writer: the one begotten in the womb of my own head, an illegitimate ghost in permanent embryonic form, gnawing away at me like a cancer. Ahlter and I had a fight as soon as The Dinosaurs became extinct – an inevitable fight, perhaps, for we were both witnesses of the other’s lost happiness. He left the university, made new friends – Ronaldo Costa Pinto and the gang at Troqueu magazine – and started to diminish what we had achieved. He would laugh and dub our aqualogue phase the “pre-history of literature”. This infuriated me to the brink of madness. Why? Well, I sorely missed being a Dinosaur, a prince-philosopher, a really active writer, privy to the mysteries of Art & Life like few others before me. I mean, I also missed the girls, but what I missed the most was that second-degree consciousness filtering everything – through eyes, ears, touch, intuition – into the lens of literature. You write, oh, so well… I truly believed I was bound to achieve great literary feats, and therefore great feats in life. I was, however, goingh through some discouraging moments. I was lost and alone, and my friend’s jeering tortured me until the day I apparently went too far. Unfortunately I don’t recall what I said. Ahlter was truly outraged. We never spoke again. I graduated and married Daphne, our old university friend, and my ex-brother Dinosaur did not attend either event; nor did I attend any of his book signing soirées. When gabriel Ahlter, now a bald man, became “the best Brazilian writer of the new generation”, as more than one motherless critic wrote, I was far away. Newspapers would gossip about the womanizing writer’s last affair, beautiful and talented postporn novelist Beatriz Viotti. I stayed at home with Daphne, went out only to attend classes and return carrying loads of papers to grade, and I remained unpublished – except for a brief volume of poetry, Acute Poems – while I wrote and rewrote a novel of increasingly unsubstantial meaning entitled Life. The repulsion I felt towards Ahlter’s first two books was both visceral and rational and, I believe, only partly motivated by envy. I mention these first two books because I haven’t read the others: by then back cover texts and reviews were enough to confirm the guy was a fraud, a fake artist, an outdated magician manipulating a shabby shadow-show. His obscenely high sales figures only heightened this impression. In class, I had to restrain myself from taking offence in the student’s comments about Ahlter’s renowned ‘expressionist narrative’ or the brilliant character thingification technique he used in Fruits Rotting in the Living-Room. Daphne also had an unfavourable opinion of him, I mean, as far as Daphne managed to have an opinion on any subject at all. It always seemed to me that my wife had within herself every opinion, finding in each of them a false note which made her discard it in order to examine the next one, and thus successively – as one peels an artichoke, except there never was a tender heart of meaning inside all those layers: there was only Daphne’s generous, quivering heart. I liked my wife, but I was exasperated by the fact that, whenever I happened to be in one of those foul moods towards my former friend, she always managed to find some sort of redemption in the bastard’s style – it’s not that bad, he does know how to use adjectives… Something she herself did not, but I never said so. I looked contrite and pretended to admire Daphne’s odd poetry, at once confessional and undecipherable, five small booklets published during eight years of marriage. (Ahlter, a cough. Daphne, a sob. For sooner or later, mid-confession, it always comes. There was a time when I would pause to ponder the best way Sample translations – Fiction to write a sob. A graphic sign, an exclamation mark? A stumble in the middle of a sentence? Some sort of ellipse? Or just like that, ‘a sob’? But this must have happened in some other incarnation – I am in a hurry, and no longer interested in expressing the sob. I don’t even know why I would sob, now that I am almost on the threshold of a new era. Maybe because, with or without a threshold, it is hard to look at one’s life and come to the conclusion that your work, your best friend, your wife, everything that was ever important has been reduced by your untalented stubbornness to the most vile and predictable form of subliterature. Envy. Frustration. Betrayal. Death. This is when confession loses momentum. The words. Sob. get caught. They won’t come out.) Like many other geniuses, Austino Lemos was an extremely unpleasant man. His sole quality was making himself scarce. He was always holed up, and when he had to go out on the street to buy some absolutely necessary item such as alcohol or tobacco, he knew how to scurry through the empty moments of the day. It was rare to meet him in the lift – it was, however, always a nasty experience. He was around fifty years of age, short and squat, with a nose resembling a giant cashew nut and wandering, almost demented eyes. He smelled. His clothes were dirty. The door to his flat, on the few times it was opened before me, revealed a patch of living room in a state of grotesque disarray. He didn’t work, and no one knows how he made a living, but even though he lived in such appalling squalor, he must have had some kind of income, for he didn’t seem to do anything and spent seven days a week locked inside his home. Toinho, the janitor, said he went into the flat to solve some electrical problem and found there was no furniture, no television set, nothing, only a few chairs, and the rest was rubble. Toinho would return once more to the lunatic’s flat, this time with company. The doorman and I found Austino Lemos on the floor of his bedroom. His body was scribbled on from top to toe in ballpoint pen, a thing my break-in partner didn’t find odd: the lunatic himself had done that, he said, you could tell by the way the letters were arranged. Between us finding the body and the hearse’s arrival to take him away to forensics – suspicious death – many hours went by. Hours? Toinho must have had to phone the appropriate authorities, let the manager of the building know what had happened, get someone to keep the children away, I don’t know. That time apart from time, the time I spent alone with the dead man, can’t be measured in the same way as normal time. I am vaguely aware that it all took a while – in Brazil these things do. When the hearse arrived, the body was practically in its original position, face down by the bed, eyes vitreous. Toinho came in with the two guys and didn’t notice the perhaps insignificant difference in the way the legs were positioned. I was trembling, assaulted by a violent emotion, and hadn’t managed to put them right after undressing the corpse and turning each fold inside out to make sure I didn’t loose a single word. Yes, the text was beautiful. As for my act, it was an atrocity no man should ever perpetrate: if anything is sacred, the human body is sacred. Unless, maybe, he is a writer too. After arranging the corpse’s position, I waited for Toinho’s return by walking around the house in a daze. In the kitchen, I saw the key to the back door attached to a key-ring shaped like a skull. I reasoned Toinho would not realise it was missing, for we had come in through the front door. And I slipped the skull key-ring into my pocket. What followed then is as vivid and remote as one of those newspaper pictures flanked by a text explaining some long action, but showing only a frozen fraction of it. The first thing the hearse guys said was that it smelled like two and a half days. Toinho proceeded to say indeed, he had noticed the smell from the lobby with his eagle’s nose – he was familiar with that sweet sickly smell of people rotting – then he thought: I’m going to get someone to go in with me, otherwise, you know, they’ll say I was stealing and shit. One of the hearse guys, an older guy, told Toinho he shouldn’t have done that, gone inside like that, it was against the Law. And he gripped Austino’s legs to lift him up. The other one caught hold of his arms, and off they went. This left me in shock. What did I expect, an epiphany? The hearse guys didn’t say much. I wanted a fright, maybe, some sort of hilarity, any sign that someone had recognized the splendor of the literary-funerary object rotting before us. The only comment the younger public undertaker managed to utter was: Look at this one, all written up, remember that fag in Honório gurgel who had a dick tattooed on his ass? He said it when he was leaving. We didn’t hear the older man’s answer, if he did answer. The two of us remained alone. Toinho observed the flat was filthy. I agreed this was true: it was filthy, it was a mess, and therefore full of clues to the death of its tenant. The Law would see that it remained that way. I said this with my hand inside my pocket – this is the picture, the frozen moment – feeling for the small skull. I didn’t realise then that I was already acting like a criminal. Sample translations – Fiction Even before transcribing every single part of the scatological text I was able to recall – moving around the house alone in a trance while Daphne was away at the beach, pulling at my hair in frustration for not being able to grasp the exact order of some intercalated sentence trickling down his leg – and thus before re-reading once more my Pierre Menard work and seeing that it was good, but no more than an epilogue, I already knew I had to go back to that flat. I hid the three sheets of paper at the bottom of my underwear drawer, turned on the TV and waited for my wife to come home. I was calm, aloof in a rather pleasurable way. I remembered the text once more, trying to link each fragment to its corresponding part. For instance, on the palm of the left hand the murderer wears a mask in the shape of a rough plastic face where one can read the word ‘mask’ written repeatedly in different colours and fonts. The mouth is a slash that cries: ‘Death to the writer!’ The short passage of that untitled work I had read made me conclude Austino did not condemn all writers to death – only those who behaved like whores, like gabriel Ahlter, betraying the great writer who might have existed inside them for the sake of social acceptance, money, sex, whatever; those who launched a book a year and filled newspapers with irrelevant articles and statements; death, then, to the prolific scholar overblown with nothing, to the legion of Rubem Fonseca impersonators, to the psychoanalytical fiction writer, to the bearded populist, to the experimental cynical, to the thesaurus scholar, to the author of the decade’s greatest best-seller, to the wordy, to the excessively dry, to the vain and to the naïve – death to whoever had once been or might come to be an author of empty words. And I happily thought: this includes gabriel Ahlter, Ronaldo Costa Pinto, Beatriz Viotti, Cícero Lucas. Among so many others. The police, of course, carried no investigation. Our police never investigate anything. They said it was a natural death, heart-related, and some relative was expected to show up, although somehow I knew Austino didn’t have any relatives, or those he had didn’t wish to see him. The flat was left to rot. As far as I know, no detective ever paid it a single visit. I should know. In the following weeks, I often worked late at the university, giving an extra-curricular class entitled ‘From Knut Hamsun to Allen ginsberg: a path of eternal hunger’. The reader is not expected to believe that. Daphne did, and that is enough. A few feet away from her, stealthly as a murderer, I spent endless nights reading. Reading? Deciphering is more like it: I was hunting, I was chasing the words which made up every inch of every underside of every carpet, every side of every slat of every shutter, every margin of every book lying around the place. Austino’s flat was a point of text whose infinite mass had been shattered into millions of pieces by the Big Bang. Sentences written with razor blade on a cupboard’s door were answered in blood on the bathroom mirror, and corrected in bean soup and excrement on malodorous heaps of towels and sheets. Whole chapters had been inscribed on the walls in invisible ink, the words having to be burned in order to reveal themselves, and for that purpose I invented a torch which provided me with both moments of bliss and anxiety; at one point I wondered if that was how the story ended, everything up in flames. It didn’t end like that. I found dazzling aphorisms scribbled on the back of shop receipts and forgotten inside empty beer bottles in the back toilet. I followed dialogues drafted on paper once used for wrapping bread, copied onto the butter’s surface, and immortalized on the almost empty fridge, equally etched on each side with grooves I initially mistook for accidents. The smell of death was alcoholic, pervasive. Ants disfigured sugar metaphors on the kitchen table. Fungus absorbed diphthongs. And everywhere there it was, written, suggested, represented, turned into drama or into a slogan: death, death, death to the Writer. The murderer’s motivations were only visible in epiphanies painted here and there, blotches of uncertain meaning, like the shimmer of an inaccessible stained glass window. To Austino, this was the perfect death: the writer bleeding around the home like a wounded animal, oozing final and equally mortal words. In that flat I learned that the only hope lies in silence. I believe I was a good restorer, guessing the artist’s primitive intention behind the numerous gaps. In less capable hands, the work of extracting the book contained within that home would probably have ended in disaster. None of this is said with any views on justifying myself. I’m not even claiming co-authorship of the masterwork, although I could have done so. I humbly and candidly confess that I would have been unable to devise such an intrigue, much less an extraordinary detective such as Elias, that fat, gauche and flatulent scholar, historian, literary critic, writer’s biographer and archivist, the only person in the world who insists on reading the text of a malignant and superior mind in the wake of hideous crimes. The scholar’s reasoning is that once he determines the monster’s aesthetic pattern, he will be able to anticipate his next attack and set a trap for him, arrest him. He obsessively lets himself be caught in the theories he spins, gradually abandoning his other Sample translations – Fiction interests, as if the mystery of murdered writers – no longer very interesting to the police, who pretended to believe they were isolated events, and not the work of a single psychopath – provided an excellent subject for the corollary of his scholar career. Our critics’ Babelian judgments about the book still leave me stunned. They all read what they want to read, say whatever they want to say, and live as they can – nothing new about that. But none of them accepts it. Like the detective, all critics search for the pattern. They all think they have found it, and each has his or her own version for it. Elias’ search, like the critics’, is aesthetical, that is to say, moral. The murderer’s search goes much further. Yes, the fat detective finally finds the pattern, but too late – the murderer is already under his bed. It’s pathetic. I am sick of this diseased little world. The threshold, please! And I’ll no longer speak of what is known. As I write, They Kill Writers, Don’t They? enjoys the reputation of a contemporary classic, as I didn’t doubt it would while I was extracting it from the garbage, giddy with gratitude. To sign it with my own name? It didn’t cross my mind. I’d still not begun to understand Austino. Not even when, after two months of archaeology, I’d gathered a sky-scraper’s worth of notes and the neighbouring flat no longer held any secrets for me, not even then did I begin to understand Austino. All I wanted was to glorify him. I was not the writer, I was the writer’s neighbour – only without me he wouldn’t exist. I believed I would tell Daphne everything when the book was finished. In the meanwhile, I justified the nights spent at the office with a lie, saying I’d found the solution for Life, and wow, I was thrilled, dying to finish it. The truth is that I avoided talking to my wife ever since the day I decided to keep silent about the unspeakable: if anything is sacred... Maybe I already knew more than I was aware. Two more months and the dead man’s book was done. Four months – those who wished to do so have already calculated – four months separate the finding of the scribbled body and the novel’s last full stop. Four months way too difficult for Daphne, who at the beginning of the fifth announced she needed time-space or something like that, and left home on a rainy morning carrying lots of suitcases. One week later, thanks to a picture in the paper, I found out she was banging – guess who. Yes, subliterature – don’t tell me I didn’t warn you. Ahlter was smiling without showing his teeth, Daphne was showing far more than her teeth. They were in front of an Italian restaurant in Leme. This day is etched into my memory with DVD quality. I stood there, paper in hand, for one hour or more, looking at the photograph. I wasn’t thinking. Then I felt a sudden urge to go back to Austino’s flat and get in touch once again with the text engraved on walls and objects, to rethink the entire book, my entire life. I crossed my living room as if I was drowning and the next door flat was a life-buoy in the fog. I opened the door and almost fell backwards. ‘Sorry I scared you’, said Toinho, closing Austino’s door and arranging his broom and mop inside a big bucket. ‘Place was revolting’, he went on, ‘some folks complained about the smell.’ ‘What?’ ‘The loony’s flat. I spent hours inside. Tell you something, this was a crazy bastard. You can’t imagine the hard work.’ ‘...’ ‘But it’s fine now.’ ‘...’ The service lift went ‘glup’ and swallowed the janitor. I stood there, petrified. looking at the door of the neighbouring flat, a twin to my own, as if in a mirror. Austino now existed only in my transcriptions. My wife had swapped me for the enemy. There was no turning back now. I would publish the book with my name and have done with it. It was the success everyone knows: reprints, translations into seven languages, interviews even on the hegemonic TV. Some assignment editor remembered the Dinosaurs, that carefree university partnership: who could have foretold they’d have such a success on their own? Then came the tiresome repetition of my enmity with Ahlter, the exhaustive rehashing of adultery, and I became a public cuckold – what’s the point in being a famous writer when you are a public cuckold? Otherwise, it was the usual Babel of critics: ‘Tragic fable about man’s division between culture and nature”, Ivan Silviano, poet. ‘A crazy and very funny jet of anti-literary vomit disguised as a mutant crime novel’, Robério Stardust, cultural journalist. ‘A divertissement with airs of Kafka’, Aníbal Nabuco, ex-minister. ‘Never has toilet paper achieved so noble a weight’, gabriel Ahlter, but it was natural to have one or two negative opinions. However, one should not be overly harsh with these critics. Even I only managed to fully understand the book much later, almost one year after it was published, when Daphne got in touch with me again saying she was sorry. I took her in. She said she had been insane, but could see everything Sample translations – Fiction clearly now: gabriel Ahlter had been a mistake, a fuckup, her life was with me. I listened to her. She said They Kill Writers was much better than Fruits Rotting in the Living Room. I fucked her. Smoking a cigarette, she cried and said Ahlter hated me badly, that one day he was seriously coked-up and told her he had seduced her only to humiliate me, and this was why he humiliated her too, in front of everyone, reciting her poems and laughing at them. I listened to her. She said Ahlter hated me so much he had a photo of me printed on the bottom of his toilet, and shat on my head every single day. It was so childish it became funny. Enough, I said. And I kicked her out. I spent the rest of the night staring at the walls of my office as if my eyes carried some sort of fire which could make the words of redemption bloom from those walls. At some point, when I went to the bathroom and examined the mirror in search of lipstick cryptograms I knew were not there, I saw two bleary eyes stuck in a green face. I was sorry Austino was dead. It would be so good to be able to talk to him. It would be so good to be able to kill him. Only then did I understand. What a fool I was. To imagine Austino Lemos would write what seemed to be a metalinguistic crime novel only for the sake of the game, for fun – this meant I didn’t know Austino Lemos. Why on earth do some writers think they have to be metalinguistic, as if their trade contained something very magical and very special – the miniature model of the whole universe – while accounting technicians, for instance, don’t care for such things? Imagine the prescriptions of a metalinguistic doctor. Fuck metalanguage, Austino was saying. I’m interested in the body. And thus the confession ends. I lay my feet on the threshold. What came later, of which I now write, seemed to be already written. I think I managed to avoid Elias by the Cazuza statue in Leblon, for I haven’t seen him after that. The digital clock at the corner showed seven past four in the morning. The writer was having a whisky at the back, by himself. Only his table was occupied. I don’t remember what we talked about, but I know we exchanged civilized, tentative sentences, as happens when old friends consider a new approach. We left the bar when the ribbon of the horizon was starting to brighten above the ocean. Ahlter was drunk and I, magnificently sober, had an easy task of pushing him down to the sidewalk. I banged his head on the concrete bollard many times, twenty times I think. I banged it on the concrete bollard until I saw the first specks of brain matter spill from that famous bald head. If anything is sacred, the human body is sacred, I recognized Walt Whitman’s booming voice over the waves in Leblon. At last, a writer who had never struck a wrong note in his lyrical exaltation? I was answered by the bard himself: The shallow consider liberty a release from all law, from every constraint. The wise see in it, on the contrary, the potent Law of Laws. I’m not sure I understood. I didn’t care. I knew the crime would feed Ahlter’s bonfire, making his mythology eternal and increasing threefold the print run of his stupid books, one thing feeding the other for years on end, and once again I didn’t care. I went home and had a bath. Then I calmly packed my bags. After a few scares, I ended up succeeding in changing my country, my name and my life, but that is the beginning of a story I shall not write. Neither this one nor any other, ever again. Not a single line. MARIA vALéRIA REzENDE O Vôo da guará Vermelha • Flight Of The Red Heron Sample translations – Fiction Translated from the portuguese by Holly Michaelsen in memory of Dorothy Stang, Margarida Maria Alves and all those who, for love, allowed themselves to be sown in our soil to one day bear the fruit of justice. gray And Crimson Of cravings and desires of the body there are many ways to take care because, since the beginning, nearly all life is this, but now, more and more, it is a hunger of the soul that taunts Rosálio, deep within, hunger for words, feelings and people, hunger that is thus a whole lonesomeness, a darkness in the hollow of his chest, a wide-eyed blindness, seeing all there is to see here, not one living thing, not even an ant, a scent of nothing, the walls of dried up, gray planks, all that gravel and sand, dull gray, the huge, concrete skeleton, colorless, the edifices hiding any horizon, a weighty, low, gray roof touching the tops of the buildings, sheet of lead clouds that remain steadfast, tracing neither birds, nor sheep, nor lizards, nor the faces of giants, they bring no message, and this is all there is to be seen, never knowing sunrise or sunset, neither morning nor afternoon, all so very here, so close that his gaze goes to come right back again, stunted, unable to stretch further, neither outward nor inward, whirling like a newly caged bird, drowning, blindness. Everything here is so nothing that Rosálio cannot muster stories that make him leap to other lives, because his eyes find no colors to paint them. Craving for greens, yellows, reds. A whirlwind lifts the loose sand and makes the door grind against the wooden fence, calling Rosálio to try the hidden paths through those excessive walls, leave, escape, search for people and pasture for the famished soul. He came by these paths, trails that fold back on themselves, making fools of those who pass unsteadily by the mute letters that spy from all sides and mock the unlettered man, Rosálio came scattering questions that the wind carried off in a gust of dirty bits of paper, unworthy of answers and invisible to passersby, lead by the smell that his body’s hunger helped to distinguish from the many strange, gray odors that wafted through the high walls and here he took shelter, among so many others, Rosálios, who came by the same paths, taciturn, clothed in gray sadness, and told him he could stay if he liked, there was a shack and a pallet to lie down on, there was a black and crooked cauldron, there was beans on credit, kindling to burn and warm oneself, a water-pump and a bucket, there was shovel and hoe, if he wanted to work , if he could mix the cement and sand into mortar, if he worked. He ate beans, worked, washed up, slept, ate beans, worked, washed up, slept, ate beans, worked, washed up, slept. They all left today, in this world only the non-color and the dull gray silence remained, in Rosálio arose the hunger for voices, the hunger for red. Suddenly, he remembers the tale the Bugre told, fills his pockets with handfuls of gravel and goes out, aimlessly, holding the strap of the wooden box that he never abandons, searching for colors of life in the empty streets. Where did the people go? all vanished?, turned werewolves, fire snakes, wandering souls, mulas-sem-cabeça? Rosálio goes leaving a trail of gravel to mark his path because he is not yet ready to venture into the world again without knowing his way back and still has to pay the beans he ate. Irene, weary, weary, how hard it was to think about nothing!, such an effort to forget about the child in the wrinkled arms of the old woman in that hovel embedded in mud, the yellow paper with the exam results, the Sample translations – Fiction doctor talking, talking, talking, time passing, passing, passing swiftly, almost everyday is Monday again, to go take some money to the old woman, to go see if the promised medicine has arrived, get the package of condoms and hear the social-worker tell her she should give up her way of life. Irene laughs, bitter and crooked, with one side of her mouth so no one sees the gap in her teeth on the other side, even though no one sees her now, even though no one looks at her full in the face, never. Funny that social-worker, “give up this life”, that’s right, I’ll give it up, I don’t care if everything ends right this minute, that this life of mine has only one door, straight to the cemetery, but would she take care of the boy and the old woman? It would be fine, since Irene already can’t get the money every week, many men don’t want anything to do with rubbers, they look for other women, and she can’t do like Anginha, who wants to pass the disease to everybody, hatefully, but not Irene, she couldn’t hurt a living soul, not one, because of the sagüi, because of that wrenching feeling in her gut each time she remembers. Oh! Anginha, if you only knew… It was so long ago and so far away, but when I think about the sagüi the agony is here, today. Oh the joy I felt when Simão returned from hunting, with only two turtle-doves, not even enough to flavor the cassava flour, but with the tiny monkey in the sack, so small that I could hold it with one hand, feeling the heat and trembling of his sick body, oh it just made me want to cry!, days and nights caring for him, wrapping him in the rag, holding him close to my heart, giving it him water, drop by drop, with the tip of an orange leaf, bits of fruit, the sagüi recovering day by day, already looking and smiling at me the way people do, grateful, pulling my hair, oh how the little bugger is getting mischievous!, he has no sense, wanting to free himself , go back to the wild, to get sick again and die?, he mustn’t, I won’t let him, I didn’t let him go for one second, he wanted to escape into the scrub, how difficult it is to live this way doing everything with just one hand!, the other hand grasping the little bugger’s tail, I didn’t let anyone hold him, for fear of being cheated, they could let him go, I didn’t trust… “This girl will get sick, look how thin she is, she doesn’t eat or sleep for love of this marmoset, forget it, Irene, let the little bugger go, sleep!” Then Simão went to the village market and brought a thin chain, made a collar out of soft kid leather, now I could sleep, play games in the ring holding on with both hands, like normal, swing from the mango trees, with the tiny monkey safe at the end of the leash tied to my wrist, to the leg of the table, to the trunk of the guava tree. I don’t know how I could be so careless, I only remember the fright, the running, the sagüi running, running, free in the open green, running, running recklessly round the house, me running, running after him, so much, so much that I couldn’t breathe, dizzy, dizzzy, dizzzzzzy, the little leash undulating like a snake before me, the last impulse, the tip of the leash within reach of my foot, jumping, my foot stepping on the leash, the jerk of the collar on the fragile neck, choking, the pine-colored fur cooling between my hands, his eyes pleading for help, dimming, the pain, the guilt, my remorse that never passed, it’s been so long!, until today. Stop thinking, woman, think of nothing, think empty like this street, think of your elbows hurt from rubbing in the windowsill, I’m so skinny!, it’s the disease. She moves away from the window, crosses the room, the feeble planks of the floor, someday this floor will cave in and the earth will swallow me, the empty porch, no one, there are no clients, they ate and drank too much, they are sleeping in their hiding places in some corner of this immense abandoned city, Sunday afternoon all things slumber, the other women are all sleeping, only Irene cannot, she waits for luck to bring a customer, who knows, something, tomorrow is Monday, the boy and the old woman, she drags her feet across the weathered marble floor to the rotting door of the great house once stately, then slum, now brothel, she looks again at the dampness of the street, dizzy, leans against the doorway and, when she lifts her lids, she sees the man carrying the box, his eyes glued to her, coming towards her, she takes courage: perhaps he’s from the countryside, a new arrival, one of those who still smells of earth and nature, new, innocent, it doesn’t hurt to try, innocent, he’ll think the condom is for his pleasure, newfangled ways of clever whores, come here, my dear, come here. Rosálio first sees the red stain in movement, surprising him as he turns the corner, shining, a gust of air that relieves his throat choked by the gray, then he sees the woman in the crimson dress, half a smile slowly appearing before him, the hand waving incessantly to him “come here, come here,” he goes, “come here,” the woman’s hand in his, the corridor, the room, the scent of humanity, past-lived, multiple, concentrated, fainted colors, stained, but still colors, in tatters to wear, in covers and curtains, faded throw-pillows and mutilated dolls, in the remains of paint and wallpaper, images of saints and bits of candles, plastic flowers, cracked trinkets, in fanciful forms of empty vessels, in the torn labels of pots and boxes, colors of life, diminished, but living, pulsating still, redoubled colors, multiplied in fragmented mirrors, in shiny strips of satin, in the fringe of the red lamp, sparkles on sequins and beads sparse in those things as tired as the woman, exhausted, having arrived there after lengthy adventures, survivors, like Rosálio. The woman’s eyes, desirous and hopeful, the half-smile, open wound in the middle of her face, her hands unbuttoning his shirt, grabbing the box from his hands, pushing Sample translations – Fiction him toward the bed, the woman’s fingers searching the paths to the arousal of his body seemingly absent because Rosálio is submerged in the world of words, yearning for them, to hear them, to say them, to exchange them with someone, but nothing is said from her mouth, she imposes with her feverish hands, with her skinny legs, with the squalid female body, to which he surrenders his firm male body, thus, without words, and he does what she wants, conquered by the pain that contorts her face. He surrenders his body but maintains his spirit alert, trying to choose the words that he desires to offer this woman when she should be willing to hear him. Irene releases the man’s hand, closes the wedged door that lets out a long moan, seems to come from her chest, she looks at the bed, how good it would be to simply lay down, sleep, sleep, perhaps dream, forever, perhaps, but tomorrow is Monday, the boy, the old woman, Irene’s mouth, professional, maintains the feigned smile, her trained fingers find the buttons of his shirt and proceed further, she pushes him to the bed, the best way to gain victory over this immense desire to sleep, do what has to be done, quickly, she doesn’t bother to take off her dress, this one won’t complicate things or demand anything, he’s innocent for sure, easily lead, I bet when it’s done he’ll say “thank you,” seems he doesn’t even want to, Irene’s hands, professional, efficient, the condom, the quick movements and there, finished, now to receive the money, put him out, wash up and sleep, sleep, sleep. Rosálio let her do as she wished and waits for what she will finally say, he has so many words and couldn’t decide where to start, waits for her first words, “that’ll be fifteen, young man”, Rosálio doesn’t understand, sees her straighten her dress, she stares at the floor, holding her open hand out to him, begging, such a poor hand!, he straightens his pants, his shirt and cradles in his hand the one she offers, feeling sorry. “What’s going on, not going to pay, are you?,” then it becomes clear and Rosálio knows what this woman is and what he owes her, he has to pay her, that’s why she did what she did, for the money he doesn’t have, his pockets still heavy with gravel. Irene doesn’t want to believe what she hears, “I don’t have any money,” tomorrow is Monday, there is nothing to take, nothing, nothing, she feels the revolt rising in her chest, exploding in her throat, thief, shameless son-of-abitch, exploiter!, she raises her hands to defend herself from the blows to surely come, she doesn’t even care about the pain, he can hit her, kill her, if he wants, she screams, screams smart aleck, thief, son-of-a-bitch, I want my money, my money!, she waits for the first strike, “sorry, ma’am, I didn’t know, you wanted it, I didn’t even want to, I thought you’d be happy,” the sweet voice, the blow that doesn’t come, the anger subsides, the desire to give up on everything, sleep, sleep, but tomorrow is Monday. She sees the mass in his pockets, her hands delve into them to withdraw gravel that she throws at the window, the money, where is the money?, “there is none, I have nothing, nothing, I’m sorry,” Irene sees the box thrown on the floor, give me the damn key!, only then does she notice the chain with the key that he takes from his neck and gives to her without resistance, inside the box a sling shot, a top and old books, many, worn round at the edges from use, the pages as dark as the tobacco leaves her grandfather rolled swaying in the hammock, for an instant Irene goes back to the veranda of the old house and smells tobacco, feels faint, the exhaustion, sleep, sleep in the hammock, but tomorrow is Monday, she thumbs through the pages of the books, one by one, and finds nothing, only words. What good are they?, words, “all words are carried away by the sea,” went the song. She wants to rip the books but her hands lack the strength, she wants to smash something, to break, to discharge the anguish and fury, she raises a trembling hand, translucent like a sheet of paper, wanting to threaten, advances towards the man who looks at her with shock and pity, who doesn’t evade her, doesn’t defend himself, extends his arms, offers his open chest, how long has it been, how long since Irene has known a chest to lean against!, to rest against this strong and tender chest is like arriving, finally, at some place her own, like going back to the beginning where nothing had been lost, not even the sagüi, where she is still whole and doesn’t tremble, nor does she feel anger and where there are still no Mondays. Rosálio feels pity, so much compassion for this woman!, she reminds him of that heron, red, with long and fine legs like rushes, which he had found once tangled in the branches of the thorn bush, its feathers even more crimson, tinged with blood, that he had set free and had wanted to nurse but, shrinking back, untamed, it escaped from him, to bleed to death, who knows?, alone, helpless in that desert so far from the swamps of its birthplace; but this one doesn’t, this one came to fall against his chest, she doesn’t flee, Rosálio won’t let her, he makes his arms a fence around her, rocks her, slowly, and starts to tell the story: Once I was wandering alone, walking through a desert, only God and I, in that place so far away, an endless wasteland, with sparse, dry scrub, I had come searching for a place with living people where I could rest and then, in that silence, I heard a sad moan that cut straight to my heart and saw a heron tangled in a thorn bush, struggling, poor thing. Sample translations – Fiction Rosálio knows not why he tells this sad story, why not remember something that will hearten the sad woman?, he just keeps telling, telling, slowly, drawing out the words, drawing the details and feeling the trembling dissipate from this heron he held in his arms, interrupted by sobs, his chest dampening. Keep telling, man, tell more, it’s early to be leaving, the day has not yet come, while it is still dark tell me, tell more so that I may dream. Irene asks, she, that never in her life wanted to ask anything from anyone, never, here stands, she has nothing, truly, not even life has she now. Tell me where you came from, tell me, tell me. Rosálio remembers his job, the beans he owes, knows he has to go back to the gray-colored place, but owes her too and has only words with which to pay. He searches his memory for more things to recount, but the woman already has slept and, in her slumber, smiles, a slight and more open smile that has nothing to hide. Rosálio leaves silently, follows the gravel trail, goes dropping the rest of the stones to strengthen this thread that can bring him back. His heart, now much more red, tells him that he will return tomorrow. CíNTIA MOsCOvICH Por que sou gorda, Mamãe? • Why Am I Fat, Mummy? Sample translations – Fiction Translated from the portuguese by Fernanda Abreu Prologue This is the painful and persistent beginning of the new phase in my life. It begins right there, a bit further ahead, in the full stop to this prologue. After that, I strive to distill the memory into invention. But only after that full stop. For my trade is exclusively to write - which means making mistake upon mistake - there is a book to be written. To use my own self as matter for fiction: it is the only way of knowing what happened, because I need to know what happened in order to start anew. Never mind whether or not I manage to unearth the truth embedded in this voluminous past tense. It matters even less whether the book is any good. What does matter is to know: in the passing of time, all that is white and clear in goodness and truth will change colour until it becomes the grey, dull and shapeless core of something which means absolutely and utterly nothing. Forty-eight and a half pounds. It was the doctor who said it, for I turned my back when stepping on the scales. I turned my back in order not to witness in such tangible figures a fact which my body had already been heralding with great scandal. Forty-eight and a half pounds equal one hundred and ten slabs of butter. Or forty-four roasted cuts of prime beef. The doctor said so. A weight I had put on in four years, he also said after checking my old clinical files. After he took my blood pressure, one-twenty over eighty, began the least funny of games: the game of why. Why did you put on so much weight? Why did you eat so much? Why are you so hungry? I was too tired to take part in that game, so I absolved both of us with a white lie: we both knew I had done everything wrong. I lied in the name of peace. All my life, at least since my teenage years, ever since I had managed to escape that addictive and bovine shape which had previously moulded my body, I had dreaded to go back to what I was. Each morsel I take into my mouth is - was - cooly and thoroughly analyzed, each single morsel is the subject of much reflection and judgment, and all excesses are punished with guilty remorse. For those forty-eight and a half pounds to have stuck to my frame of hardly five feet, much water must have gone under the bridge. A water and a bridge I myself didn’t see - there was a four-year gap during which my body and my soul divorced, the open mouth keeping the eyes closed. Ricardo, zealous and attentive husband, said I had a fuller, stouter figure, but that it didn’t matter much. Didn’t it? Shame and dread prevented me from telling the doctor about this aknowledgement of my own absence. Neither did I speak of my husband’s mild generosity. The doctor agreed to sign the armistice. But the peace between us would only come when I lost the equivalent of all those butter slabs and roasts of prime beef. No carbs, no sugar or fat, no eating out of scheduled times. Fiber and protein, my best bet were fiber and protein. And I would have one free meal per week - only one. After prescribing a battery of tests, he promised to keep an eye on me: I had to report every so often to have my weight checked. And one more thing: “It is not that you are fat now.” All right, my condition was not transitory: being fat had never been a single episode in my life, I knew it, he didn’t even have to elaborate. But elaborate he did: “We’ll make your fat cells shrink”. He summoned my attention with a swirl of his pen. “I know it seems unfair, but nature made you that way. You are fat, period.” Once more, again. Sample translations – Fiction Cholesterol, triglycerides, glucose and what-not: eveything was perfect. The tests confirmed it. A person is overweight because of poor eating habits, lack of physical activity, bad metabolism and genetics - besides other obscure variables like anxiety, depression and such. My metabolism always worked very well, thank you - and it is the only determining factor for obesity I manage to escape. In short: I am fat because I eat and because my genetic predisposition wants it to be so. I may come to believe that. Whether or not I know how I gained this weight, the only thing I can change are my eating habits. And I can move my body: one-hour walks, four days a week. I hate walking. In the last four years of my life, my body rebelled: I bloated as if I wanted to fit into myself from the inside. On the ouside nothing would fit me anymore. Buttons wouldn’t find their casings, the metalllic teeth of zippers would no longer interlock, bands, laces, everything shrank. I started to shop for clothes in stores catering for special sizes. Yards and yards of cloth in the shape of blouses, tunics, dresses, garments whose spectacular circumference is only comparable to the grief they provide. Hidden in changing rooms, panting, sweating women try to squeeze their folds into straight-cut fabrics, disguising flabbiness in neutral colours. Protected by curtains, standing before addicted mirrors, airing their slack nudity underneath the fans, each of these women stares the deterioration of fantasy in the face. Among frayed elastic bands ans fabrics, the desire or the need to dress do not match a feeling of moral and aesthetical well-being; it is, on the contrary, a hassle which must end soon, at once, immediatedly - the sooner, the better. How did I manage to return to that obese teenage condition which I had escaped with the help of chemical bombs and episodes of near inconsciousness? Forty-eight and a half pounds mean back to stage one, but without the health needed to survive crazy drug cocktails. Forty-eight and a half pounds weigh much more than they seem: I became slow, tired, evasive. Very sad and very gloomy. Slow and tired like my aunts, sisters of my dad, sad like Thin granny, gloomy like Fat granny. Evasive like my mother. My soul certainly shows through in this body, this roomy body which became, through excess, so cumbersome. A burden. Reaching one’s ideal weight is a demanding task. Pain also has its own weight. When quickened by memories, it weighs even more. If the pain goes away, will I lose weight? Something went wrong. In me, in life. In order to understand it, I cross the threshold of memories. I try to rebuild each single day of each month of each year. Not only of the last four years, but all the years of my life. The past does not exist in its perfect state, raw and pure like a stone. The past only exists because memory does, and memory is betrayal: it both subtracts and adds, both tears and unites. Because it is non-linear, and because the mind always whishes for a smooth ordainment of things, memory exasperates: everything makes us want to stick our hands into this murky limbo and pluck all things from it in their logical sequence and completeness. When things come back from oblivion they are always shattered, shreds of what they were before time diluted them and other things overlapped them. Maybe this is why I embraced fiction, because it is the last chance of bringing two facts together and making whole something which is torn and incomplete. Fiction is the mortar for assembling parts. For putting together spare, stray things. Fiction might just turn ashes and dust into solid stone. A time when days loose their light and the world shudders with the breath of yet another autumn. Although things resemble themselves, the appearance of what they are floats on the surface, a mockery of what they, these things, hide in their essence. The tree remains a tree despite having lost its leaves, but it relies on the memory of each cell to recompose itself. I am still what I am, the result of all that has been, although my stretched stomach and my shrunken feelings show me everything has changed. An Israeli writer said: “I refuse to surrender a single grain of memory to the frozen claws of time.” I am afraid, but I am ready to put that full stop and quicken the flow of memories. The fight against frozen time. The prologue’s last breaths: then it will start. Mummy, it is to you I write, I need help. I need you to help me walk this metaphysical path of memories. I need you to help me send this pain away. I want to have a body again. There is a book to be written, and in this book the facts will spring as if by magic, however imperfect this magic might be. Possible answers, illusions to help shrink the grief and the body. The prologue ends. Then it has already began. I start with a question mark. Why am I fat, Mummy? vITOR RAMIL Satolep • Satolep Translated from the portuguese by Ligia beskow de Freitas Sample translations – Fiction I have dispersed myself in time whose order I ignore. SAINT AUgUSTINE, Confessions “I had new visions of Satolep in ruins. Today, it was our house that I saw: collapsed roof and wall; the wrecked north face, the living room, the dining room and the kitchen handed over to the storm; the front door fallen over winding plants among the exposed bricks of the façade. Inscriptions in ink, which I could not read, dirtied the rotten windows. There were no remains of our family.” My brother’s voice came to us from the ruins even though he was there, standing in front of us. Around the table, having breakfast, we listened to him, not without terror, but in silence. “The time to leave has arrived”, he announced. The hat on his head and the traveling bag in his hand dispensed the sentence. My father asked the driver to bring Selbor, the photographer. The driver posed with us, leaning on the balustrade between the pillars on the porch. My visionary brother, my sisters, and I stood very close to each other, in the entrance of the house; my mother and my father, in the lateral window, which would not be there anymore in the future. I TURNED UP THE COLLAR OF MY OVERCOAT, PULLED DOWN THE BRIM OF my hat over my eyes and exchanged the premises of the hotel for the ones of the fog. Satolep was properly decorated for my lonely party. Things geometrized by the cold revealed themselves volatile. Rigorous lines at sunlight were, now, absence of contours. To turn thirty was to get lost in the mist while catching sight of the city’s concreture, or was it the contrary? A dog floated behind a sprung cart that was passing. The granite of the curb ran by my side, at times shiny in its humidity, at times dissipated in luminous steam; another dog, made of stone and cloud, a dog from some mythology, condemned to be born and die indefinitely. To be born a stone and to die a cloud? To be born a cloud and to die a stone? Thirty years old. I blew imaginary candles, and my soul trembled in front of me. I USED TO SEE MY SOUL WHEN I WAS A CHILD, BREATHINg ON THE JUNE windowpanes to write my name on them. My soul carried my name. Nevertheless, during the long period that goes from the end of those first years to the night of my thirtieth birthday, I had not seen it. While traveling around the world, I had forgotten it. When I wished to see it again, I thought that it would not hold my handwriting anymore, that it would not recognize my digitals. This was another June, another beginning of winter: while the temperature fell in Satolep, I wore myself out in the routine of the fierce heat in the north of Brazil, the extreme opposite in the country. My suitcase, not yet unpacked on the floor of the bedroom, as usual, was heavier than normal, because of the bother of an increasingly sick temporariness that nested itself among my shirts. Being far away is a large telescope for the virtues of the land where the first Sample translations – Fiction shirt was worn. The shirts reminded me of Eça de Queirós’ sentence which my father liked to quote. The shirts reminded me of my father. I moved naked in the dimness of the house. I left the bedroom, crossed the corridor, entered the kitchen. My eyes witnessed the infallible and insidious sun heating through the crack in the window the untouched plate with food, forgotten on the table since the previous night, but they said nothing about what they saw in the telescope. I was not sure of what I saw. Dust danced in the cylinder of the sun. My eyes were made of dust. The world burned me. I got some water from the earthenware water filter while my damp feet looked for comfort on the floor cooled by the night. I had left the land of my first shirt behind many years ago and had departed in search of the sun. I had looked for it far from Satolep, had found it everywhere; I had surrendered myself to it as, when I was a child, naked already, I had kneeled the closest possible to the can of alcohol in flames that warmed the bathroom and there I had kept looking at the rain falling outside on the roof tiles darkened by the humidity, on the gutter holes, on the panes of the pivot window. Now, it was June again, but I avoided the heat of the sun as a slug avoids the salt sprinkled on its way. “Be careful not to knock over the can”, my mother always used to warn me. I peeked at the sidewalk through the shutter, and a bead of sweat ran down the left side of my face. Which unforeseen gesture had spilled the alcohol towards me? THE WORLD BURNED ME. HOW LONg HAD I BEEN IN THAT TOWN? WHAT was it called again? After the heat ceased, would I see dry leaves covering the sidewalk? Would I see a cold wind sweep it afterwards, and then flowers blossom again in the flowerbeds, and then the sun come back in the right amount I would miss it? I asked myself about the seasons in the South, about my own seasons. I thought whether I had had them some day. I, the seasons, and the places have looked the same lately. “I like to renew my wardrobe, to exchange light clothes for winter clothes”, my mother used to say when winter arrived. At the beginning of spring, my father used to remark: “We look like the backyard, losing the humidity spots”. In the dimness of the kitchen, my look seemed to seek consolation in these remote images. Would they be those land virtues of my first shirt in the large telescope? When I was a child, the humidity spots used to take long to vanish. Satolep used to take long to vanish. I feared it would never vanish. To make it vanish, I would leave it behind as if it had never existed. But now, so many years and places later, in the sounds of sprung carts, words, the smell of night-blooming jasmines, some mansions, some nights, indistinct things, there it was again, as something I needed. Satolep had not vanished yet. With it, my fear that it would not vanish. Neither had I, a child, faster than time, vanished yet. There I came, falling down the stairs in the two-story house where I had lived part of my childhood – parts of the two-story house coming to me slowly, coming so slowly, so many parts of the two-story house, so many screams that belong to the two-story house, so often the two-story house coming to my mind and taking so long to vanish. The day arrives in white bottles in the houses on Paysandú Street. The wee portions of austral light make it the first place where dawn breaks in Satolep. The Adelo Store has not opened yet, the streetcar has not passed yet, but the containers disposed identically on the granite thresholds already echoed the chirp of the birds, rakes in the flowerbeds, newspaper pages, jammed corners. At this time, nothing nor nobody seems to be behind the façades on Paysandú Street. Nevertheless, the bottled morning stirs subtly on all the stretch of the street because of the children that turn on the rusty springs of the mattresses and the mothers that stomp their alpargatas, hardened by the humidity, on the floor while they walked through the corridors among the dim bedrooms. We, the dwellers on Paysandú Street have got used to the impositions of the first hour. We are not very perceptive. Within us, it is always very early, be the sun at its peak or be it orangish on the hills of the German colony. We are barely seen entering and leaving our houses. Sometimes I ask myself whether we live on the street or whether it is the street that passes within us. When the milkman makes his brief pause on Piratinino de Almeida Square and prepares his sprung cart to change his course and keep on the delivery, the day bottles are not by the door of the houses anymore. While Satolep still dreams of bridges of fog, submerged leather vessels, out of tune pianos on the top of fig trees, we, the dwellers of Paysandú Street, are already sunbathing in our kitchens. Sample translations – Fiction IN THE DIMNESS OF THE KITCHEN, MY STARE. I NEEDED TO VANISH, I needed to vanish from there, I needed to vanish from there on. But where to go from there on? Suddenly, I had the impression that I had been living an illusory progression for years. Had I always gone downward and inward when I thought I had gone forward and outward? Had I been falling all the time? Anyway, after having dwelt in houses in a lot of cities and countries, I felt worn out, unable to correspond to my compulsive need for change and find any sense in it. I had reached a limit. This time, I did not know the name of my street; it took me a long time to remember the name of the city I was in. All I knew was that my house was in the North, near the sun, and that, even so, my first shirt was hanging on the line, still humid. Why could the sun not dry it? I slid my hand on the objects which were on the sink cabinet. Nothing was mine. Was it that I had been looking for with my transitive life, that nothing, ever, anytime, should be mine? I, who had wandered around the world after things, who had made it my profession, who had got by with the bread of all things. NOW, THERE WAS HUNgER THAT THINgS COULD NOT SATISFY. I HAVE always despised my body, but it was calling my attention to what was happening. In its own way, it said that there was no thereafter. And I had no arguments against my inconsolable eyes, my plentiful sweat, my trembling legs. This humble, extremely humble body, imposed itself on me with unexpected authority, standing indifferently in front of the fruits arranged in the center of the kitchen table – where the cylinder of sun and dust beamed on – as if to warn me that the hunger did not strike me with taste, color, form or name, only with emptiness, emptiness that might be myself; I, pretentious abstraction, it said, pretentious to the point of despising it. My hand has slid on the cabinet telling me about things, about the hunger of all things, about those many things I had learned to contemplate through the windowpanes in our house, that greenhouse of abstractions that our father and our mother kept – she, with her almost immaterial presence, he, with his inexhaustible sermons -, abstractions that sounded imperishable in opposition to the concrete, objective, ruin-prone reality outside, abstractions that entwined with the family as a whole, and with each one of us. I had wanted to confront things to assure my perenniality. They, little by little, assured what was concrete in me. Things were the limit. My hand was already on the suitcase. My body had decided to come back. WHEN YOU COLLECTED ME ON THE STREETS, DID YOU, gENTLEMEN, THINK I was deteriorated by inner reverie? But I was intact, as I am now, destitute of shadows at daylight like the mosaic tiles that had just been laid on the sidewalk in front of the Caixeiral Club, where you found me. I recognize that my appearance does not show it. My shoes are shabby, my overcoat is dirty and worn at the elbows. I have been walking in the city canals, and washing my face in the fountain in the Jardim Central. I know that my record does not favor me and that the lucidity that allows me to make this assumption is likely to seem a contrivance. You may want to ask for evidence of the integrity I claim. I think it is fair. When my body decided to come back, I reacted similarly. I let my hands close the suitcase, pack my equipment and shut the front door. Afterwards, from the cab window, I only made sure that the house was left behind, in its North, that its façade was being forgotten, that its color faded away among other colors forever. At the port, I regretted having to take a very long and tedious trip by ship, but I thought about the possible benefits of the wait and allowed myself to board. During the trip, I made things even easier by getting busy with memories of old maritime narratives, letting my body recover from the burden I had represented so far. Having disembarked at the port in Rio grande, I was lofty to hide the excitement at being so near Satolep by train, the destination that had once been my origin. And, even though I believed that my 30-year trajectory closed a circle, I tried a reaction: was it inevitable that, geographically, it was also a circle? Was it sensible to come back physically? Indifferent, neither resigned nor fearless, my body headed straight for the train station, moved by the instinct for moving a spiral, rather than a circle. It believed that, instead of closing, that spiral would raise it to another one. It was the most human hypothesis of all; I did not put up any resistance. But, when we arrived at the station, I faced my willful body and warned it: “I will demand evidence”. Sample translations – Fiction In front of the Palácio Municipal a man looks for a job without noticing that the holes in his shoes show a perfect fit to the lustrous cobblestones; a physician gets confused with the memory of the dead patient in his hands, without turning his face to the statues, the parapets, and the gables which are erected around him through his eyes; a smoker tied to a butt breaks his oath concerning his last cigarette without noticing the scent of soybeans and jasmine in the breeze that brushes his nose; a civil servant who works for the Finance Department in this city, which gives him everything, feels he was deceived; a clockmaker with large steps lets himself be tightened by time and suffers because of it, being unable to learn the lesson taught by the crape myrtles that stray freely through their slow shadows; two young boys transform themselves into balusters, having room to be fast winged sprung cart drivers; two women, one of them scolding a child, find themselves elegant and reserved under ceremonious sunshades being exposed to the mild sun as sinister mushrooms in this warm summerlike period out of season; a priest wearing a large hat feels sorry for the black paper collector who feels sorry for the priest wearing a large hat. Among all these citizens, I, sat on the high curb, am the only one seen as alienated; I, who respectably wait for the fog and the ruffle of dusk on the birds in order to bless everyone, cocoon by the door of the Palácio and sleep. THE MOST HUMAN HYPOTHESIS OF ALL. TO SURVIVE. A DECISION THAT was not within my power. But I could not complain about my condition as a spectator. I faced the train trip boarding my body the way it had faced the trip through the sea boarding a ship of English flag: stretched, swingy and sleepy. The train chugged: keep this way, keep this way, keep this way. And I kept quiet, very quiet. It was my body teaching me survival lessons. Indeed, quietness might have been the most suitable state of mind for that comeback; some kind of quietness that delayed, under observation, the view of a hostile world long acquired in the family greenhouse and gave way to the arguments of life outside, whose dynamics I could never understand. To close the thirty-year circle may be more about resuming the stretch of road I had left behind, rather than covering the stretch that was ahead of me. I would have to get closer to this empty lot from the past step by step. I would need the quietness I could see through the window on the flourishing plains, where light went far and the train traveled without any impediment. As we got closer to the city, the fields became waters that became sky, molding complete smoothness, which involved us and polished the composition. When we reached the iron bridge over the São Gonçalo Channel, the passenger that traveled next to me pointed to the surrounding landscape – clear in its full extent, even though patches of creeping mist were starting to form -, the mirrored surface we would pass by, the regular green of the pasture on the right bank, the pointillism of a small herd, the face and the outline of the buildings standing out against the oriental sky, and said: “Cold geometrizes things”. I DISEMBARKED WITH THE TRAVELINg COMPANION’S SENTENCE IN MY mind. Cold and things: a wish for maturity and a wish for childhood met on the platform at Satolep Station. The gentleman who had provoked that meeting stood in front of me and held out his hand to say goodbye. Before leaving, he asked me whether I knew the city. “It is my first time here”, I answered. I cannot tell you whether it was I or my body that had decided to act that way. Probably both, because, in principle, I would not have said that, but, as soon as I said it, I thought I had told the truth. The man, who spoke impeccable Portuguese despite his strong Spanish accent, came closer and said, with the same naturalness of somebody who tells the time or the name of a street: “If we had traveled purely through the intensity of light and the rigorousness of the landscape, we would be penetrating in its details now. We have disembarked in the station of essential things”. His remarks were the first blossom in the plain of my quietness. “Have you already found a place to stay? Would you like some orientation? I am Cuban but I have often come to Satolep. I know the city well.” It was embarrassing to arrive and find out that I had no courage to go to my Sample translations – Fiction parents’ house. Before coming, I feared that the house would never leave me. The vertical clock at the station lounge struck six times: keep this way, keep this way, keep this way. The Cuban, gentle as usual, waited for my answer until my body took the initiative again, showing that it was confident that the city would help me come back. Then I said: “Would you recommend a good hotel?”. IF ANY SENSATION THAT ESCRIBES THE TIME OF MY THIRTY YEARS remains some day, it will be this one: to be in me and around me. I was coming back and saw myself coming back. These days, I am not sure which position was responsible for the rapture and which one was responsible for the circumspection. Nevertheless, I clearly remember this combination on that precise day. My body, which had shown determination and confidence in the city when it was on the arrival platform, could not proceed now that it had to face the restlessness of pedestrians, cars, streetcars, sprung carts, with the smell of coffee and soybeans, with the intact luminosity after so many years. That was when I, the abstraction that despised it, in an inverse reaction, longed for moving forward. Immobilized and hectic at the same time, I stared at the street for a long time until an abrupt and uncontrollable sickness struck me. My knees collapsed and I vomited in a pitiful way. “It is the tiredness of the trip, keep calm”, the Cuban supported me. The square in front of the station opened up generously waiting for a hug. Sample translations – non-Fiction LETíCIA WIERzCHOWskI Uma Ponte Para Terebin • A Bridge to Terebin Translated from the portuguese by Fernanda Abreu The old man in the photograph: Since everything in this story ends or comes from a photograph, a whole life can fit between two such photographs. This was the fate of Janek’s first-born. One photograph in 1939, another in 1947, and then a third, this time with little Irenka on her mother’s lap. And finally that letter, image-free, a simple kraft envelope and my son’s trembling handwriting flying over the blue lines, like a bird that is afraid to land. For many years I have kept Janeczek’s pictures inside a paper box, until I myself disappeared from life, and my things, so few in number, probably ended up in that very same box, struggling for space with the portrait of a blond and rather sad little boy who may have known each of our destinies. So I in turn became a picture in Brazil, in the two-story house Janek built after he came back from the war. A picture with a black strip on the frame sitting on a sideboard in the living room; a picture before which my son would pray, bidding his children do the same, although today I can imagine they must have felt for me the same tenderness they felt for a sponge. Why would they care for me when they never even knew me? I never sent any gifts. The Poland where I spent my old days was a sad place which turned its old people into beggars. In the letters I wrote my son, I could never avoid certain requests - for the sake of matka if not my own. I wish I had sent those grandchildren something, something other than my blessing, which was not very useful. But a whole sea is a lot of water, and all the will in the world wouldn’t be enough to brave the Bolshevik offices and their bureaucracy: Poland for the Polish. We were trapped inside our bottle, doomed to die gasping for air, while in Brazil our grandchildren grew up in a brand-new world and awed at the future, never suspecting where they had come from. Never suspecting that behind them lay a whole chasm of stories, forever lost. Everything in these pages is part of a world that no longer exists. Never again will a man leave his country behind in the same way the Polish left Poland in the nineteenth and early twentieth-century. In those times, all departures were final: people left with their souls, clothes in a bundle and hearts torn between hope and fear. People left forever in search of a future, of dignity more than riches. Not that men today are stuck in the same place. Quite the opposite: even in this box where I find myself hiding I can see them hurrying by, in their trans-continental trains and their supersonic planes, crossing the earth in a few hours, plugged to their computers and mobiles and pagers – electronic beasts such as this very one where history tattooes itself, printing itself on the luminescent display like a star trapped inside a plastic cage. I am a photograph on a table, and from here I unveil the topography of this electronic miracle. In my time people used pens, and when I was a boy people still used the quill. But my time, like I said, is over. People would disappear in the mists of invincible distances, and whole years would go by without a single word from them. Not so today; today men travel, they come and they go bearing their extenuated souls and their worked-up bodies, poor angels no longer able to fly without the help of metal and technology. The trip Janek and so many others made was a chasm, splitting life in two pieces which remained forever separate. There was no coming back… Weeks at sea, hundreds of creatures packed inside a ship bound towards the unknown. There were no booklets, no folders, no photographs. Money was not returned in case of an accident, risk was all there was. Thus Janek went searching for his future in Brazilian lands, and then war came and made things even worse. Ah, this was all so long ago… I myself am a prehistoric creature printed here in this photograph, and my great-great-great-grandson, upon seeing me, laughs at my clothes and thinks I am some kind of oneeyed doll, some game, some puppet without a stage. His judgment is not so far removed from the truth: I am but a puppet forgotten by the years, lying crumpled in drawers, covered in dirt, trampled by the Nazis, humiliated by the Russians and ignored by the Americans. I am part of a number in history books, I am the name no one utters anymore. I am the shadow. The root beneath the earth… I am no longer, that is the truth. Sample translations – non-Fiction But the great-great-great-grandson’s smiles make me laugh, as does the curiosity inherited from his own mother, whose hand stubbornly traced these very lines, colouring them with imagination. I laugh at the great-great-great-grandson, and I bless him, this boy unruly as the sun. Some part of him began to take form many years ago, when my first-born came into our house in Terebin and solemnly announced he was leaving for Brazil. Some part of this blond boy with huge black eyes was born in that last moment, in our small living-room in Terebin. I still remember well… It was summer, and the year was 1936. The sun was shining and we were all at home, and Aniela was kneading the bread. But I keep no pictures of this, and you will have to take my word. Sample translations – non-Fiction LYA LuFT Perdas e ganhos • Losses & Gains Translated from the portuguese by Michael Wolfers for vermilion, an imprint of Ebury publishing From the age of six I had a mania for drawing the forms of things. By the time I was fifty, I had published an infinity of designs; but all that I have produced before the age of seventy is not worth taking into account. At seventy-three I have learned a little about the real structure of nature, of animals, plants, trees, birds, fishes and insects. In consequence, when I am eighty, I shall have made more progress; at ninety I shall penetrate the mystery of things; at a hundred I shall certainly have reached a marvellous stage, and when I am a hundred and ten, everything I do, be it a dot or a line, will be alive. (Hokusai Katsushika, 1760-1849) For Fabiana & Fernanda - and Rodrigo - who form part of the gains Contents 1 Invitation Finding the tone 2 Drawing in the depth of the mirror The brand on the flank Theories of the soul 3 Taming to avoid being devoured The geisha in the corner of the room Dancing with the scarecrow 5 The time of life The tone of our life 1 Invitation I am not the sand where a pair of wings is sketched or bars before a window. I am not merely a rolling stone on the world’s tides, on every beach rebirthing another. I am an ear clamped to the shell of life, I am construction and demolition, servant and master, and I am mystery. Hand in hand let us write the script for the theatre of my time: my destiny and I. We are not always in tune, nor do we always take ourselves seriously. Finding the tone 4 Losing without losing the self My lover Hope Old age, why not? Mourning and rebirth What is this book? Perhaps a complement to my 1996 novel Rio do meio. I write along the same lines, taking up some of my usual themes. All my work is elliptical Sample translations – non-Fiction or circular: plots and characters peek here and there behind a new mask. I do this because they were not exhausted in me, I go on telling them. I shall probably carry on in this way to the last line of the final book. So what is this book? I shall not call it ‘essays’, because the solemn tone and the theoretical underpinning suggested by the term are not my style. Certainly not novel or fiction. Nor are they teachings – I do not have these to give. As in many fields of activity, new methods of work and creativity arise that need new names. Everyone will give this narrative the name they wish. For me it is that same word in the listener’s ear, which I find so pleasing and use in novels or poems – a call for the reader to come and think with me. What I write is born out of my own maturing, a path of highs and lows, shining moments and shadowy areas. On this route, I learned that life does not weave a web only of losses but furnishes us a succession of gains. The balance of the scales depends largely on what we can and want to perceive. I sit here at the computer and I think about the tone of this book, which I must find. At this starting point I sense it as a whisper to the reader: ‘Come and think with me, come and help me in the quest.’ Although it is a private word, this might at some moments seem a cruel book: I say that we are important, and good, and capable, but I say too that we are often futile, we are too often mediocre. I say that we could be very much happier than we usually allow ourselves to be, but we are afraid of the price to be paid. We are cowards. Nevertheless, the book must be hopeful: I am one of those who believe that happiness is possible, love is possible, that there is not merely missed opportunity and betrayal but tenderness, friendship, compassion, ethics and delicacy. I think that on the route of our existence we need to learn this discredited thing called ‘being happy’. (I see eyebrows raised ironically before this romantic declaration of mine.) Each one on his path and with his particular characteristics. * * I meet a friend, a distinguished pianist, and I report that I am beginning a book, but as always at the start of a new work, I am still looking for the right ‘tone’. He finds that apt, so a writer is looking for the tone? We laugh, because we find in the end that both of us are looking for the same thing: finding our tone. The tone of our language, of our art, and – this is true of anybody – the tone of our life. In what tone do we wish to live it? (I did not ask how we are condemned to live.) In melancholy semi-tones, in brighter tones, with speed and superficiality, or alternating joy and pleasure with profound and thoughtful moments. Only skimming the surface or from time to time diving into deep waters. Distracted by the noise around or listening to the voices in the pauses and the silence - our own voice, the other’s voice. Will our tone be one of suspicion and mistrust or will it open portals to an endless landscape? This depends partly on us. In the instrument of our orchestration, we are – along with genetic or random accidents – the tuners and the performers. Prior to this, we construct our instrument. This makes the assignment more difficult, but much more stimulating. In art as in human relations, including a variety of loving relationships, we swim against the current. We attempt the impossible: total fusion does not exist, complete sharing is impossible to achieve. The essence cannot be shared: it is discovery and surprise, the glory or damnation of each – in isolation. However, in a conversation or a silence, in a gaze, in a loving gesture as in a work of art, a narrow window may open up. Together, the performer and his spectator or his reader will stare – like two lovers. That is how people, skinning knees and hands, end up. So I write and shall write: to stimulate my imaginary reader – substitute for the imaginary friends of childhood? To search within and to share with me so many anxieties about what we are doing with the time that is given us. Since living must be – until the last thought and the final gaze – a process of self-transformation. What I write here is not mere daydreams. I am a woman of my time, and I want to bear witness to it with all the skill I can: giving scope to my fantasies or writing about pain and puzzlement, contradiction and grandeur; about disease and death. Regretting the word spoken at the wrong time and the silence when it would have been better to speak out. I write continually about the way we are to blame and innocent in regard to what happens to us. Sample translations – non-Fiction We are authors of a good part of our choices and omissions, daring or compromise, our hope and comradeship or our mistrust. Above all, we must decide how we employ and enjoy our time, which is in the end always our present time. But we are innocent of accidents and brute chance that robs us of perfect loves, people, health, employment and security. In such a way that my perspective of the human being, of my self, is as contrary as we provocatively are. We are transition, we are process. This disturbs us. The flow of days and years, decades, serves growth and increment, not loss and restriction. In this perspective, we become masters, not servants. People, not frightened little animals that run without knowing exactly why. If my reader and I can agree on our reciprocal tone, this initial monologue will be a dialogue – even though I may never gaze upon the countenance of the other who in the end becomes a part of me. So my art shall have achieved some kind of goal. (…) Dancing with the Scarecrow (translated from the Portuguese by Alison Entrekin) I have said or insinuated here that maturing should be seen as something positive and that aging does not mean losing one’s individuality. One of the reasons for our frustrations – both men and women – is that we live in a culture that glorifies youth and worships physical beauty beyond all reason. If maturity is the fruit of youth and old age is the result of maturity, living means going along naturally weaving the fabric of our existence. A process so deceptively trivial for those involved in it, so singular for those observing. So insignificant in the context of the history of humankind. Following this current, within our circumstances, carrying the baggage we’ve been given and which we’ve acquired along the way, we navigate. We choose some of the itinerary and draw something in the margins, accompanied by positive presences, but also finding it hard to live well – this fact being a monster that is always ready to finish us off. We don’t always notice it: it’s a part of our culture, education, media, personality. It’s in magazines, in the minds of those around us and those we love; it’s inside of us. It grows and thrives in direct proportion to our inexperience in dealing with it. The enemy is varied; it has many heads. We are many, said the demon that possessed one unfortunate soul in Christian literature. They all control and inhibit us: the imposition and acceptance of unattainable goals; not appreciating ourselves; giving in to prejudices; the absence of personal values; the superficiality of all kinds of relationships; our consequent fear of the process, which, instead of making us evolve and grow, scares us with annihilation. We need to move beyond the idea that we are merely heading towards our end, slowly deteriorating and fading away. This is our most destructive specter, since it feeds on our fear of death, and grows unchecked because our inner emptiness grants it extraordinary space. If we want to grow as human and thinking beings (rather than merely survive), this bedside clock or wristwatch – especially the one in our minds – should only be what it is: an instrument for measuring and coordinating everyday activities, for delimiting different phases with their highlights and limitations, their rewards and hardships, but generally meaning growth, not mutilation. At each transition we carry out our rituals, lose a few assets and gain others, some won at great effort. I am referring to our inner assets. Those that do not expire even when our bank is collapsing or the country going bankrupt; those that we do not lose even when a loved one dies; those that in pain, illuminate us; in happiness, help us enjoy life more; and in boredom – when everything seems so uninspiring – stir up submarine currents of energy even when the surface appears to be dead. When we think everything is over, that we’ll never again be touched by happiness or emotion, everything good that was hidden away emerges in full vigor and force. I speak of these treasures: they can overcome what paralyzes us. They can rise above this culture of the here-and-now, opportunity, consumption, fashion, being on top, non-stop fun and games. In childhood everything is always now. We are immersed in living. Little by little we learn to distinguish before and after, perhaps by our momentary separation from a comforting presence that comes and goes in a still undefined time frame. This absence becomes real in a flash when the person returns. “Hey, weren‘t you here?“ We finally emerge from these warm waters and realize that we exist – in time. We are in process, en route, on course. Our limbo becomes clear and our story begins. When I was a girl I used to like waking at dawn to savor what was forbidden, because we children had to remain quiet in bed until our mother Sample translations – non-Fiction called us. I would go over to the window and open it slowly so as not to make any noise. How magical the garden was at that hour! Brimming with the night that was ending, brimming with expectations for the day about to begin. At that age I didn’t see the passing of time as something hostile, but a kind of spell that brought about transformations: the cocoon with its promise of glittering wings. Why now, with a larger body, rougher skin, wrinkles and experience, would I be in decline and not natural transformation – like everything else? What is beautiful in a baby is unattractive in a teenager; what dazzles in a young person can be out of place in someone more mature; just as old age – if it is not a caricature of youth – has its own enchantments. *** “But what can be positive about growing old?” I was once asked. “Give me one example and I’ll believe you.” Our inner qualities come up trumps, asserting themselves over our physical qualities. Contrary to what happens to our skin, hair, the sparkle in our eyes and firmness of our flesh, they tend to improve: intelligence, kindness, dignity, our ability to listen to others. Our ability to understand. But there must be something inside that can come up trumps: physical wear and tear will be compensated by our inner sparkle. We will not have to mutilate ourselves with unnecessary surgery, heavy makeup, extravagant clothing... nor will we have to hide ourselves away because we are mature or old. If the transformation that takes place in our bodies is inexorable, its speed and characteristics depend on genetics, how we look after ourselves, health and inner vitality. When something is inexorable there is only one thing to do, and it is not running away: it is living it as best we can. The issue is not freezing life, but traveling with it instead of staying static and being left behind. Unless we are really foolish we should like our appearance at every stage. We should be able to look in the mirror and say: Well, this is me. Not extraordinarily well-preserved, nor falling to pieces. I am the way people are at this stage. And if I am like this, then I like myself. I am my story. Because we are not just our appearance; but we are also our appearance. To reject it is to reject what we have become. For this reason, while neglecting one’s appearance is sad, it is pathetic to want to look twenty years old at the age of forty, or forty at the age of sixty. We should want to be beautiful, dignified, elegant and vital sixty-year-olds or eighty-year-olds. Eighty-year-olds who are still happy. *** Someone once lent me a book in which the sentence “The goal of life is death” was underlined. Well, I believe that the end of life is death, but that the goal of life is a happy life. Words become worn like stones in a river: they change form and meaning, move place, and some disappear, becoming the sludge in the riverbed. They can even reappear renewed further on. Happiness is one of them. It has become banal because we are living in an era in which strong emotions and desires are vulgarized – it is all fast food, prêt-à-porter, microwaveable, quick and easy... and often anemic. While, out of enchantment and profession, I have chosen the terrain of words, I know how much some are contaminated by use and become aggressive or contradictory, or take on ironic or ingenuous airs. They can become confusing and inefficient, lead to misunderstandings or clarify meanings. I am familiar with the way they take over our experiences, giving them faces, clothes and airs we had never imagined. I like things – people and words – that are disconcerting. Their imprecise contours provide us with a point of departure for reflection and creation. But some words and circumstances frighten me when I peek behind their seven veils. Many express the transformations of our time, changes in behavioral standards, progress and advances – in addition to the shadows and sterile anguish, the waste. Some have to do with ideas that are not only rarely attained, but when they are, have little to do with freedom and happiness. The passing of time should mean becoming more complete, if we didn’t carry with ourselves the founding prejudice of our time: that only youth is beautiful and has the right to be happy; maturity is dull and old age is a curse. Maturity need not be the beginning of the end, nor must old age mean isolation and drought. Our ties with lovers, family and friends can be strengthened, interests can become more varied, and we can enjoy the good things in life even more. Being alive is being able to refine our awareness that we are too valuable to waste trying to be something we aren’t, can’t be or don’t even want to be. Sample translations – non-Fiction *** “That’s how time is: it devours everything by nibbling away at the edges, gnawing, eating, clipping and consuming. And nothing and no one will escape it, unless they make it their pet.” (Blind Spot) Accompanying me through this book, readers will help me unravel time – time that has been reflected upon, thought through, hated, feared and won. Why are we so afraid of it? Why – when did we decide it was a threat instead of a promise? Or: when were we taught to think like that... and why do we accept it? We live in a civilization that has given us more time but loathes the passing of time. “You state that time does not exist... so why do you write so much about it?” a journalist once asked me. She was – and wasn’t – right. It has been a backdrop or even a character in my works. By stating that it doesn’t exist I mean that it doesn’t exist as something that determines my beliefs or pessimism if I do not want it to. It is not a powerful external entity that, from a certain age (determined at random or by world health organizations), sets me on a downhill roll without allowing me to react. We can react in many positive ways: taking on board and appreciating each phase of ourselves; not resigning ourselves to received ways of thinking or giving up as soon as the first wrinkles set in; never resorting to the false rebelliousness that makes one a caricature of youth. Some popular myths about the possible joys of maturity are pathetic. An independent, 65-year-old woman bought a new apartment. The comments she heard were stimulating, but she found some disconcerting: “With this lovely apartment now, you’ll have heaps of men.” “A modern gym has just opened near your new building. Now you certainly won’t have any problems meeting guys.” In this pathetic kingdom of futility, these concepts don’t encourage us to live, but to freeze. Rather than proposing the construction of positive values, they seed an undergrowth of foolish ideas. Time is an ogre that devours children, and moments of crisis will toss us about like rag dolls or straw men... If my outlook bestows meaning on what is real and external, then I can declare that the world has a place for me regardless of my physical beauty or appearance and age. But if my outlook on the world sees things through a lens that is cynical, or silly and superficial, I might as well pack my bags and get out ahead of time, well before the plenitude of maturity. Like so many other things, living will change my body. But it will only hold the power over my soul that I give it. Our most intimate companion – the time we live in – will only become our executioner if we allow it to. We will spend our existence tied to a scarecrow, which, instead of frightening away harmful birds, stops us from flying. We must turn the tables. Accepting what is natural as natural, taking on board what cannot be changed. There is a whole range of good reasons to live well and instigating things to discover, which I previously might not have had the time or wisdom to even try. *** We are so frivolous that we have become incapable of loving life as it is given to us and achieved at each stage. We are dominated by a kind of restlessness that does not make us more productive and open to new things; rather, it is the childish agitation of one who is never satisfied because he has never found himself. This makes us fragmented and lost. If we fall outside of the status quo – determined by others and not always real nor worthy of respect – because we are too tall or too fat or too old or less sophisticated or less wealthy and less powerful, we do not allow ourselves to be naturally desirable and loving. As such, we do not allow ourselves to be loved. A mature or old body can be healthy and harmonious, just as a young body can be sick or deformed. But comparing a mature or old body to a body in the plenitude of youth is childish and cruel. Having greater peace of mind and knowledge, strengthening our own beliefs – in short, being an individual – requires reflection, strength and individuality. But such concepts are passé, out of fashion. We are constantly called upon to ”live it up” – whatever that means. When I was young I used to hear (even today, sometimes) things like: Don’t get married young – live it up first! This was only valid for the young men; young girls readied themselves to be submissive and polite. These days I hear: Don’t have kids too soon, live it up first! I am not exactly sure what I think of this expression, I guess because I don’t use it. What I do know is that living it up is not essentially acquiring, buying, enjoying, owning, traveling, dancing, having sex, consuming. All of this is part of it, and it’s great, but what exactly does living it up mean? For some, it is being in fashion, even if the garment on offer is completely beyond (or beneath) our wildest dreams. For others, it is having consumer products that have nothing to do with their own desires. Sample translations – non-Fiction Tied like defenseless animals to ideas we don’t even approve of, we are victims of fantasies created and fed by the media, industry, fashion, commerce – which want to sell us symbolic goods, valued above all else: the beauty of the moment, and eternal youth. This fear of physical difference is so widely disseminated that it is not uncommon, when asking after someone, to hear the – at the very least – peculiar answer (accompanied by a sweeping gesture): How’s your daughter? Huuuuge! And how’s Joe? Well, he’s immense! It doesn’t occur to them that I might want to know if the person is traveling, if they’ve had another child, finished their studies, if they’re sick, happy, retired, remarried. Our current obsession is, even before money and social status, physical appearance. Living is not advancing, but consuming oneself and becoming thin. But part of growing up is the fact that my bones grow longer, and I no longer take size 25 shoes. Part of growing up is the fact that as adults our bodies change and continue to undergo transformations. Part of the process of life, not death, is that at 60, 70, 80 years of age my step won’t be as sprightly, my skin will be wrinkled, my body less erect, my eyes less shiny. But what is not a part of life is considering myself disposable and hiding myself away without the right to move, act, actively participate – within my natural limitations. I haven’t been to the swimming pool for years – no way am I going to let someone see my body the way it is! Those who seek themselves as they were twenty or forty years ago will feel as if they no longer exist. As if the person in the mirror is – rather than a continuation of that earlier person – a betrayal of nature. *** Regardless of genetics, actual possibilities and age, we are always frustrated because we are not blonder, darker, thinner, taller, more athletic, because our skin is not smoother, or our eyes more seductive. Why do we accept and cultivate the pathetic idea that only youth is good and beautiful, with the right to dare, to renew, to love? Allowed to be, to occupy space? Much of our suffering (I refer to the dispensable things) comes from the fact that we are so childish. In addition to the pain we feel because of what we are not physically, we suffer because of what we have yet to do: Buy every product on the market. go to all of the fashionable places. Above all: never take it easy, never be content, never accept oneself. Stopping to think – that’s unthinkable: it would be too painful. This is not the sign of a restless mind but of a weak soul. This is not living life, much less living it up. In the same manner, no one suddenly stops in the middle of this race to only then, out of the blue, realize that they exist as a complex human being, with a path and destination... We do not suddenly, on a whim, decide to set aside time to love, time to be decent, generous, to reflect, to look within ourselves and at those who live with us. Time to question ourselves. Time to show our children something we think, time to be faithful companions and partners to the ones we love. We don’t work like that. Our phases are not divided into dykes and dams: they are flow and running water. Therefore, it is always time. But it must be natural, it must be a part of living together, not an instant inserted into our routine like a foreign body when we are feeling restless or guilty. A love that talks is a habit. If never practiced, it will not unexpectedly produce good, mature fruit. Even in our sexuality, in spite of all the to-do, freedom and incredible array of information available (most quite dubious), we are still very primary. We end up bowing to the obligation to be sexually fantastic (almost always lies and deception arising out of insecurity), but as human beings we may be weak. If the media offers us the key to being happy in bed – or out of it – in ten lessons at a low price, perhaps we should stop to think and conclude that it is merely bait, that happiness in love is not born of our performance, but the tenderness that betters and intensifies our performance. We need to learn to fight ridiculous standards; to discover who we are, what we like, how we like to be – how to be happier. This isn’t in magazines, on television, in the advice of friends: it is intimate, personal, untransferable. Each and every one of us needs to understand this and build their own happiness. That’s how happiness is: each person, each day, accepts the kind on the market... or makes their own. www.agenciariff.com.br
Fernando EICHENBERG
