The latest addition to my website is Lygia Fagundes Telles‘ As Meninas (The Girl in the Photograph). This novel was set in the late 1960s and published in 1973, during the period of the military dictatorship in Brazil. It tells the story of three young women – Ana Clara, Lorena and Lião – who are … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Helena Parente Cunha‘s Mulher no Espelho (Woman Between Mirrors). This is a feminist, modernist novel. The author and the main character are seemingly two sides of the same coin, with the character, who pushes against the author, but does not push against the patriarchal society in which she … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Heloneida Studart‘s Selo das despedidas (later: Sem dizer adeus) [Seal of Farewell]. This is a grim feminist novel, which starts with the suicide of a woman, Maria das Graças Nogueira de Alencar, from a distinguished family. She leaves her eight notebooks to her niece, Mariana and we follow … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Bernardo Carvalho‘s Mongólia [Mongolia]. A young Brazilian, son of an important CEO, goes missing in Mongolia and a diplomat, working temporarily in the Brazilian Embassy in Beijing, is sent off to find him, though he is seemingly reluctant to do so. He eventually gets some idea why the … Read more
The latest addition to my website is João Ubaldo Ribeiro‘s Sargento Getúlio (Sergeant Getúlio). Sergeant Getúlio is a tough and brutal sergeant in the military militia who has to take a prisoner from the backlands to Paulo Afonso, Bahia. However, there are a lot of people who do not want him to succeed but the … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Mário de Andrade‘s Macunaíma (Macunaíma). When it first appeared, this was quite a revolutionary book, in that it was unlike other Brazilian novels of the time. We follow the story of Macunaíma, who is a trickster, a mythical person, who can perform magic but who is always up … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Adriana Lisboa‘s Azul-corvo (Crow Blue). Our heroine is Evangelina, known as Vanja, a thirteen year old, born in the US but who has spent most of her life in Brazil with her Brazilian mother, Suzana. Like most of the women in the family, Suzana dies young and Vanja … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Erico Veríssímo‘s Caminhos cruzados (Crossroads). This tells the stories of a host of characters who live on or have connections with a street in Porto Alegre, where Veríssímo lived. It is a thoroughly miserable tale. Most of the characters, rich or poor, married or single, young or old, … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Graça Aranha‘s Canaã (Canaan). We initially follow two German immigrants to Brazil who are looking to buy a plot and grow coffee. The two, however, are very different. Milkau is eager to enjoy the New World and keen on nature, while Lentz still very much feels that European … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Nélida Piño‘s A república dos sonhos (The Republic of Dreams). This is a long and complicated family saga, which jumps around chronologically – we start off with the family matriarch, Eulália, dying but she takes six hundred pages to do so. Madruga is an ambitious young man in … Read more