{"id":294776,"date":"2013-08-05T20:06:35","date_gmt":"2013-08-05T20:06:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wdev.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent-dev\/2013\/08\/05\/preview-of-brazilian-literature-at-frankfurt\/"},"modified":"2018-04-16T15:56:35","modified_gmt":"2018-04-16T15:56:35","slug":"preview-of-brazilian-literature-at-frankfurt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/2013\/08\/05\/preview-of-brazilian-literature-at-frankfurt\/","title":{"rendered":"Preview of Brazilian Literature at Frankfurt"},"content":{"rendered":"

You may have already read this, but last week, Publishing Perspectives<\/em> ran a piece I wrote about Brazil being the Guest of Honor at the Frankfurt Book Fair this fall.<\/a> Below is that article in full with extra links to all the books mentioned. <\/p>\n

(And as a sidenote, in addition to the review of Jo\u00e3o Almino’s The Book of Emotions<\/em> that we ran last week,<\/a> I’ll be posting reviews of a few other Brazilian works over the next few weeks.)
\n*<\/p>\n

Last month I was fortunate enough to be the sole American representative to take part in the Brazilian Publishing Experience 2013, a specially organized cultural exchange program designed to help promote Brazilian literature to the rest of the world. We spent ten days total in Brazil, both in Rio de Janeiro and in the unbelievable city of Paraty, where we were able to attend FLIP<\/span><\/a> \u2014the Greatest Book Festival in the World. (No, seriously. Not only was the line-up loaded with stars\u2014Geoff Dyer, Karl Knausgaard, John Banville, Lydia Davis\u2014but it took place in one of the most beautiful spots on earth.<\/a>)<\/p>\n

The vast majority of our discussions centered around the details of the Brazilian market. There are approximately $4 billion in sales every year, a quarter of which is government purchases for schools. Ebooks make up like 2% of the market, but this will grow thanks to the increased presence of Amazon and Kobo and Apple in Brazil. Most bookstores are in S\u00e3o Paulo and Rio, which is what one would expect, but there are publishers throughout Brazil, many of which will be at the Frankfurt Book Fair this fall.<\/p>\n

In addition to simply learning about the Brazilian market, this trip also served as a opportunity for the Brazilian publishers to unveil some of the things they\u2019re planning for Frankfurt\u2014the attending authors, the cultural and literary programming, etc. As frequently happens to me after one of these trips, I\u2019ve been on a Brazilian lit bender ever since I got back. (Well, a literature and caipirinha<\/a> bender. Not to mention a newfound love for soccer superstar Neymar Jr.)<\/p>\n

Anyway, for anyone interested in learning more about Brazilian literature, below is a bit of an overview of some classic Brazilian texts (available in English) and some highlights of what\u2019s being planned for Frankfurt.<\/p>\n

The Classics.<\/b><\/p>\n

Brazil doesn\u2019t get nearly the amount of literary respect it deserves. First and foremost, it\u2019s the birthplace of Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis, one of the greatest world writers of all time. His novels The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas<\/em> (a.k.a. Epitaph for a Small Winner<\/em><\/a>) and Dom Casmurro<\/em><\/a> are ingenious, playful books that bring to mind the meandering meta-fiction of Tristram Shandy<\/em>. Also worth checking out is the new edition of The Alienist<\/em><\/a> that Melville House recently published.<\/p>\n

Thanks to the success of Benjamin Moser\u2019s biography of Clarice Lispector, Why This World<\/em>,<\/a>& there\u2019s been a resurgence of interest in her work. In the States, New Directions recently reissued five of her books in new translations\u2014 The Hour of the Star<\/em>,<\/a> Agua Viva<\/em>,<\/a> A Breath of Life<\/em>,<\/a> Near to the Wild Heart<\/em><\/a> and The Passion of G.H.<\/em><\/a> \u2014all of which are worth reading.<\/p>\n

On a slightly more contemporary note, the third author I\u2019d like to mention is Rubem Fonseca, not just because Open Letter publishes his collection The Taker and Other Stories<\/em>,<\/a> but because he was one of the first authors to write about the dark, twisted, violent aspects of life in Brazil. His faux-detective novels, like High Art<\/em> are really brilliant, as is the recently translated collection, Winning the Game<\/em><\/a> (Tagus Press).<\/p>\n

The Young.<\/b><\/p>\n

The recent Granta<\/em> special issue on the Best Young Brazilian Novelists<\/a> is the best source of information about the younger generation of writers in Brazil, several of whom will be attending the Frankfurt Book Fair, including Michel Laub (who has a novel coming out in the UK), Daniel Galera, and Carola Saavedra.<\/p>\n

The Anti-Utopian.<\/b><\/p>\n

Two of the authors I\u2019m most excited to meet in Frankfurt are Ign\u00e1cio de Loyola Brand\u00e3o (Zero<\/em>,<\/a> And Still the Earth<\/em>,<\/a> The Good-Bye Angel<\/em><\/a>) and Jo\u00e3o Almino (The Book of Emotions<\/em>,<\/a> Five Seasons of Love<\/em><\/a>). Both have written books in which the city serves as a primary character\u2014S\u00e3o Paulo for Brand\u00e3o and Brasilia for Almino\u2014and the lives described are less than ideal. Brand\u00e3o will participate on the \u201cPolyphonic View\u201d panel at 10.30 on Saturday, October 12th, and Almino will be appearing in a panel on \u201cAllegories and Utopias\u201d at 14:30 the same day.<\/p>\n

The Graphic Novelists.<\/b><\/p>\n

Another panel that I\u2019m personally excited about is the \u201cMeeting of Generations\u201d graphic novel event taking place on Sunday, October 13th at 10:00. This panel brings together a couple traditional comic artists\u2014Ziraldo and Maruicio de Sousa\u2014along with the newer generation, including F\u00e1bio Moon & Gabriel B\u00e1, the twin brothers behind Daytripper<\/em><\/a> (Vertigo).<\/p>\n

The Poets.<\/b><\/p>\n

In addition to all the prose writers mentioned above (and a couple dozen more that will also be in attendance), Brazil is sending over a bunch of poets, including Ad\u00e9lia Prado and Hector Ferraz Mello, who will discuss their ironic and metaphysical approaches to poetry (\u201cPerplexed Contemplations,\u201d Thursday, October 10th, 16:30) and Affonso Romano de Sant\u2019Anna and Nicolas Behr who will share their experimental, satiric poems (\u201cCannibal Satire,\u201d Saturday, October 12th, 16:30).<\/p>\n

This is just a sample of what Brazil is planning for their presence as the Guest of Honor. They\u2019re bringing 70 authors in total, and putting on 32 literary events \u2014 a perfect opportunity to introduce Brazilian literature to the world, and show everyone that there\u2019s more to this country than The Girl from Ipanema.<\/a><\/p>\n

\n<\/a>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You may have already read this, but last week, Publishing Perspectives ran a piece I wrote about Brazil being the Guest of Honor at the Frankfurt Book Fair this fall. Below is that article in full with extra links to all the books mentioned. (And as a sidenote, in addition to the review of Jo\u00e3o […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":292,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[67486],"tags":[9196,376,1646],"class_list":["post-294776","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","tag-brazilian-literature","tag-frankfurt-book-fair","tag-review"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294776","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/292"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=294776"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294776\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":310506,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294776\/revisions\/310506"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=294776"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=294776"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=294776"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}