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Saturday, July 13, 2013

What is Brazil Reading?


What Brazilian authors do you think I should read?

This question seemed to excite more interest than almost any other.  My bag is full of scraps of paper with authors and titles, the notepad on my phone is scattered with random titles, and my iphoto is cluttered with photos of books.

So what is recommended?

1.  Jorge Amado -  Author of many romances and intimate regional tales from Bahia in northern Brazil.  Wrote from the 50s through the 70's.  Captains in the Sand and Gabriela, Clove, and Cinnamon.
2.  Paulo Coelho - Widely read author of New Age spiritual fables from Rio de Janeiro.  The Alchemist.  
3.  Paulo Leminski - Favorite poet of hip, young students who devoted many hours translating for two Americans.   Leminski is a contemporary poet.
4.  Clarice Lispector - Considered one of the greatest novelists of the 20th century but not widely known outside Brazil. The Passion According to G.H. Complicated and literary writer.
5.  Lygia Bojunga - Children's writer.  My Friend the Painter.
6.  Graciliano Ramos - Modernist  communist writer who depicts the lives of the disenfranchised.  Sao Bernardo:  A Novel.
7.  Erico verissimo - Incidente em Antares.  Highly regarded work.  I cannot find an English translation.
8.  Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis.  Fascinated with the theme of jealousy, this realist writer was first published in 1899.  Dom Casmurro is a story of adultery told through the eyes of a betrayed husband.
9.  Gilberto Freyre - The Masters and the Slaves: A Study in the Development of Brazilian Civilization.  Academic writer concerned with issues of race.
10.  Aluisio de Azevedo - In 1881, he wrote a scathing expose of his native city called Mulatto. It is the story of a young man kept ignorant of his mother's identity and his mixed birth.  He is also the author of O Cortico pictured above but unavailable in English (as far as I can tell).



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