Macunaima, first published in Portuguese in 1928, and one of the masterworks of Brazilian literature, is a comic folkloric rhapsody (call it a novel if you really want) about the adventures of a popular hero whose fate is intended to define the national character of Brazil."Inventive, blessedly unsentimental," as Kirkus Reviews has it, and incorporating and interpreting the rich exotic myths and legends of Brazil, Macunaima traces the hero's quest for a magic charm, a gift from the gods, that he lost by transgressing the mores of his culture. Born in the heart of the darkness of the jungle, Macunaima is a complex of contradictory traits (he is, of course, "a hero without a character"), and can at will magically change his age, his race, his geographic location, to suit his purposes and overcome obstacles. Dramatizing aspects of Brazil in transition (multiracial, Indian versus European, rural versus urban life), Macunaima undergoes sometimes hilarious, sometimes grotesque transformations until his final annihilation and apotheosis as the Great Bear constellation in the heavens.

    The poor orphan Aurélia is devastated when her true love, Fernando, breaks their engagement for the financial rewards of a marriage of convenience to another. But Aurélia unexpectedly inherits a fortune and plans her revenge. Winning marriage to Fernando with a large dowery, she stuns her lover on their wedding night by imposing a marriage of convenience until the dowery is returned. The marriage descends into one of hate more than convenience, until both recognize the errors of their ways.

    Flush with his newfound wealth, Rubiao heads for Rio de Janeiro and plunges headlong into a world where fantasy and reality become increasingly difficult to keep separate. Brilliantly translated by Gregory Rabassa, Quincas Borba is a masterful satire not only on life in Imperial Brazil but the human condition itself.

    You wonder after meeting such a person whether she was real or imagined and then decide it doesn't really matter." Belles Lettres The silent rage that seizes a matriarch whose family is feting her eighty-ninth year. The tangle of emotions felt by a sophisticated young woman toward her elderly mother. An adolescent girl's obsessive fear of being looked at. The "giddying sense of compassion" that a blind man introduces into a young housewife's settled existence. Of such is made the world of Clarice Lispector, the Brazilian writer whose finest work is acknowledged to be her exquisitely crafted short stories. Here, in these thirteen of Lispector's most brilliantly conceived short stories, mysterious and unexpected moments of crisis propel characters to self-discovery or keenly felt intuitions about the human condition. Her characters mirror states of mind. Alienated by their unsettling sense of life's absurdity, they seem at times absorbed in their interior lives, and in the passions that dominate and usually defeat them.

    Leôncio sends Isaura to the fields to force her to yield, but Isaura flees instead with her father to Recife. There Isaura meets and falls in love with a well-to-do young man, Álvaro, but at a ball, she is recognized, and Leôncio takes her back to his farm, and orders her to marry Belchior, the gardener. But Leôncio is practically bankrupt, so Álvaro purchases his debts, freeing Isaura and leading Leôncio to commit suicide.

    Here, Scliar creates a definitive character, Captain Birodidjan, fearless hero of a new world, fanatic preacher of utopias, solitary and hopeful sailor in a sea of indifference."The One-man Army" captures the reader through the agile, precise narrative, structured on cuts in time, where fiction is constantly wrapped in a fantastic atmosphere. Moacyr Scliar's dark humour surrounds this beautiful book. The saga of Birobidjan, the solitary preacher of a better world, his crazy humanism, quixotesque, his magical dreams, make of this book an emotional and unforgettable read.

    This family’s downfall, peppered by stories of decadence, adultery, incest, and madness, is related through a variety of narrative devices, including letters, diaries, memoirs, statements, confessions, and accounts penned by the various characters.Lúcio Cardoso (1912–1968) turned away from the social realism fashionable in 1930s Brazil and opened the doors of Brazilian literature to introspective works such as those of Clarice Lispector—his greatest follower and admirer.Margaret Jull Costa has translated dozens of works from both Spanish and Portuguese, including books by Javier Marías and José Saramago. Her translations have received numerous awards, including the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. In 2014 she was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire.Robin Patterson was mentored by Margaret Jull Costa, and has translated Our Musseque by José Luandino Vieira.

    He turned out to be a born storyteller.The adventures of Beremiz Samir, The Man Who Counted, take the reader on an exotic journey in which, time and again, he summons his extraordinary mathematical powers to settle disputes, give wise advice, overcome dangerous enemies, and win for himself fame and fortune. as we accompany him, we learn much of the history of famous mathematicisns who preceded him; we undergo a series of trials at the hands of the wise men of the day; and we come to admire the warm wisdom and patience that earn him the respect and affection of those whose problems he resolves so astutely. In the grace of their telling, these stories hold unusual delights for the reader.

    Álvaro lives alone and bemoans the evils of his ex-wife. Sílvio can’t give up the excesses of sex and drugs. Ribeiro is a vain, Viagra-abusing beach bum. Neto is the square, a faithful husband until the end. Ciro is the Don Juan envied by all—but the first to die. Cutting in on these swan songs are the testimonies of those the men seduced, cheated, loved, and abandoned: their wives and children. Edgy, funny, and wise, The End is a candid tropical tragicomedy and an epitaph for a lost generation of machos.

    As Luiz Ruffato describes the scenes around him on this one typical day, he deciphers every minute and second of a metropolis marked by diversity—a mosaic of people from all over Brazil and the world that defines São Paulo’s personality at the start of the twenty-first century. The city is more than just traffic jams, parks, and global financial maneuvering. It is alive, and every rat and dusty grocery truck informs its distinctive character.Winner of the Brazilian National Library’s Machado de Assis Award and the APCA Award for best novel.

    Such was the ambition of João Cabral de Melo Neto. Though a great admirer of the thing-rich poetries of Francis Ponge and of Marianne Moore, what interested him even more, as he remarked in his acceptance speech for the 1992 Neustadt International Prize for Literature, was "the exploration of the materiality of words," the "rigorous construction of (. . .) lucid objects of language." His poetry, hard as stone and light as air, is like no other.

    Years later, he relives the episode as he examines the mistakes of his past and struggles for forgiveness. His father, who has Alzheimer’s, obsessively records every memory that comes to mind, and his grandfather, who survived Auschwitz, fills notebook after notebook with the false memories of someone desperate to forget.This powerful novel centered on guilt and the complicated legacy of history asks provocative questions about what it means to be Jewish in the twenty-first century.

    On the primitive frontier of desert and mountain in the backwoods of Brazil, fifty-two hundred houses and every man, woman, and child who lived in them had been destroyed. The ten-month-long house-to-house battle, the agony of guerrilla warfare, the bitterness of "scorched earth" retreat was ended. The federal army of Brazil had defeated the religious mystic, the fanatic street preacher, the Messiah to thousands, who had led from December, 1986, to October, 1897, the strangest of all rebellions.Yet Antonio Conselheiro's personal war did not go unsung. Os Sertões—called Brazil's greatest epic—is Euclides da Cunha's searing, moving account of Conselheiro's struggle. It is a valiant cry of protest against oppression of the weak by the strong and a wise and compassionate record of a shocking totalitarian crime perpetrated against a handful of backwoodsmen in a little-known corner of the world.In this brilliant English translation by Samuel Putnam, Rebellion in the Backlands retains its force as a classic contribution to man's understanding of the human spirit and the human struggle.

    The next day they proceed to destroy each other. Amid vitriolic insults, cruelty and warring egos, their sexual adventure turns into a savage power game. This intense, erotic cult novel by one of Brazil's most infamous modernist writers explores alienation, the desire to dominate and the wish to be dominated.

    Written by one of Brazil's leading authors and columnists, Club of Angels was an immediate success there, and has been on the bestseller list since 1998. It tells the story of ten privileged men, who meet every month to dine fabulously and celebrate their friendship and singularity. When their leader, Ramos, dies of AIDS, the narrator Daniel meets his possible replacement -- Lucido -- in a wineshop. Lucido is mysteriously taciturn, but in the privacy of Daniel's kitchen, he recreates the men's favorite dishes, giving them a gastronomic experience like no other. The tale of bewilderment and death that follows creates an unforgettable literary experience. It is tinged with funny characters, witty dialogue, touching with mordant satire on all segments of Brazilian society. Club of Angels has been translated into English by the renowned Margaret Jull Costa (translator of Jose Saramago, Paulo Coelho, Javier Marias, and Arturo Perez-Reverte).