By Luiza Franco Moreira (Binghamton University) A passage from an essay by Antonio Candido on Kafka’s “The Great Wall of China” has come to my mind quite often in the past few years: "The complex organization of the empire, expressed in the immense effort of building a wall, rests on reasons that cannot be known. … Continue reading Antonio Candido: Restless intelligence, impeccable integrity
(Illustration: A group of famous children's characters of Brazil created by Daniel Azulay who passed away in March due to complications from COVID-19) Children’s literature has an important influence on the formation of collective imagination in Brazil. I will try to summarize in this post some of the highlights of this rich tradition. Clarice Lispector’s … Continue reading Children’s Literature in Brazil
By Sarah Rebecca Kersley Considered by many readers as one of the most exciting emerging contemporary authors in Brazil at the moment, Luciany Aparecida is a writer whose work is increasingly gaining attention for its fresh and experimental style. Each of the different genres in which she writes brings a singular take, via the narratives … Continue reading The Signatures and Geographies of Luciany Aparecida
By Padma Viswanathan Why is Graciliano Ramos not read more widely outside of Brazil?* All educated Brazilians have read at least one of his books and more avid readers will readily name a favorite among his novels. In 1941, a national literary poll in Brazil named him one of the country’s ten greatest novelists—one of … Continue reading Why is Graciliano Ramos barely read outside of Brazil?
Staying home can be an opportunity to discover new literary worlds. Here are some picks from Brazilian literature that are available in English. What are the Blind Men Dreaming by Noemi Jaffe. Noemi Jaffe "Three generations of women reflect, in their own words, on the Holocaust and bearing witness in Jewish and Brazilian identity. In … Continue reading #StayHome with Brazilian Literature
By Dr. Cimara Valim de Melo In the course of the first two decades of the 21st century, a number of questions have been raised on how to promote Brazilian literature in a globalized – but still greatly hegemonic – system. So-called world literature still remains a territory for Anglophone societies, mostly accessed by English … Continue reading Brazilian Literature Worldwide: The Role of the Translator
By Basak Bingol Yuce “She is proof that reality can inflict a pain unknown in fiction.” This is how Eliane Brum describes Enilda, one of the women whose story interweaves with many other “living mothers of a dead generation," the title of one of Brum's stories. It also explains my response to Brum's brilliant book, … Continue reading Feeling the Pulse of Brazil with Eliane Brum
By Leonardo Tonus The Brazilian Literary Spring (Printemps Littéraire Brésilien) is an annual festival that aims to promote the study of Portuguese-language literature and humanities in institutions located beyond the borders of “Lusofonia.” The idea was born in 2014, in the Brazilian literature classes that I teach at the Sorbonne, in Paris. In a way, … Continue reading Brazilian Literary Spring
By Noemi Jaffe Speaking Portuguese is both a blessing and a curse. A blessing for the beauty of the language, for the literature it has produced and for the cultures it represents, in Brazil, Portugal, Mozambique, Angola, Cabo Verde, Goa, and Macau. But a curse because -- and I can say that with certainty -- … Continue reading Guimarães Rosa: The Writer of Love and Transcendence
By Dr. Eliseo Jacob In 2018, a relatively unknown writer from the working-class community of morro do Vidigal, a favela in Rio de Janeiro's south zone, took the literary world by storm. Only 26 years old at the time, Geovani Martins published his first book, a collection of short stories titled O sol na cabeça … Continue reading Geovani Martins: New Literary Voice from the Favela
Global Literature in Libraries Initiative 