Book picks similar to
O Natimorto by Lourenço Mutarelli


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Hilda Furacão


Roberto Drummond - 1991
    There she becomes Hilda Hurricane, an erotic force of nature no man can resist. The exception is reporter-narrator Roberto Drummond, who attempts to unravel the mystery of why the girl in the gold bikini would forego a comfortable life to join the world's oldest profession. While some in Belo Horizonte cheer Hilda's liberated lifestyle, others seek to have her moved outside the city limits, and a would-be saint cannot seem to finish the exorcism he began outside the Hotel Marvelous. Set against the social and political upheaval of the 1960s, Hilda's story seduces even as Drummond becomes aware of more ominous forces approaching Belo Horizonte.Hilda Hurricane was both a critical and a commercial success in Brazil, with more than 200,000 copies sold. (The DVD of the television adaptation has sold more than a million copies.) Admirers of Kurt Vonnegut will revel in Drummond's similarly sharp satire and playful digressions, particularly about left-wing politics, which blur the boundary between fiction and autobiography. Yet the real genius of the author's interventions may be that they never slow the story long enough to lose sight of this mysterious beauty swept up in the turmoil of the times.

Showdown


Jorge Amado - 1984
    A classic Brazilian "Western" full of romance and adventure, violence and courage, and peopled with wonderfully earthy characters from the legendary author's childhood."Set in Bahia at the turn of the century, Showdown is brimming with the gunmen, fugitives, prostitutes and other characters who settled that sunbaked northeastern state."--The New York Times "[Jorge] Amado has returned to some of his earliest, most radical concerns, confronting Brazilian society, memory, and mythmaking, and aiming to show, by anecdote, how the Brazil of the modernizing present has buried its (criminal) past."--Commentary"The Brazil [Amado] writes about in Showdown shares many of the traditions of the American frontier, and that is something Americans can relate to."--Linda Grey, former Bantam president and publisher"Showdown is a combination of the old Amado, who wrote Bahian historical novels, and the new Amado, with the spirit of Gabriela."--Gregory Rabassa, National Book Award-winning translator of Showdown

The Collected Poems of Alberto Caeiro


Fernando Pessoa - 2007
    Ricardo Reis says: "Alberto Caeiro da Silva was born in Lisbon on April 16, 1889, and died of tuberculosis in the same city on (. . .), 1915. He spent nearly all his life in a village in Ribatejo, and only returned to the city of his birth in his final months. In Ribatejo he wrote nearly all his poems . . ." Fernando Pessoa was educated in English in Durban, as the stepson of a Portuguese diplomat, and was completely bilingual. During his lifetime he was to publish only one collection of his poems in Portuguese, although many appeared in literary journals, under a number of alter egos, or heteronyms, chief amongst them Alberto Caeiro, Alvaro de Campos and Ricardo Reis. At his death in 1935, Pessoa left more than 20,000 manuscripts - poetry and prose - in a large trunk, the contents of which are still being transcribed and deciphered to this day. He is the greatest modern poet in the Portuguese language, but always considered himself a poet in the English tradition."

Ponciá Vicêncio


Conceição Evaristo - 2006
    Latino/Latina Studies. Translated from the Portuguese by Paloma Martinez-Cruz. The story of a young Afro-Brazilian woman's journey from the land of her enslaved ancestors to the emptiness of urban life. However, the generations of creativity, violence and family cannot be so easily left behind as Poncia is heir to a mysterious psychic gift from her grandfather. Does this gift have the power to bring Poncia back from the emotional vacuum and absolute solitude that has overtaken her in the city? Do the elemental forces of earth, air, fire and water mean anything in the barren urban landscape? A mystical story of family, dreams and hope by the most talented chronicler of Afro-Brazilian life writing today.

Sergeant Getúlio


João Ubaldo Ribeiro - 1971
    It is a tale of virtue." (Prologue)

O Matador


Patrícia Melo - 1995
    But instead of being arrested, he is lauded as a local hero. Yet something in the undertow continues to trouble him. Deeply. Maquel pays a visit to Dr. Carvalho--a dentist with gleaming canines and a peculiar interest in violence. The doctor lectures Maquel on "the theory of the born criminal" and offers him a deal: free dental care in exchange for the death of the man who raped his daughter. Soon the dentist's wealthy friends want to make deals with Maquel, too. Maquel has become The Killer. Thus bombarded from without and within, Maquel's life in crime escalates to stunning heights. Brutal infidelities are committed, Mafia-style dealings are conducted, and civic honors are bestowed. From there, the fall is devastating.

Brasil: Uma Biografia


Lilia Moritz Schwarcz - 2015
    The authors not only reconstruct the epic story of the nation but follow the shifting byways of food, art, and popular culture; the plights of minorities; and the ups and downs of economic cycles. Drawing on a range of original scholarship in history, anthropology, political science, and economics, Schwarcz and Starling reveal a long process of unfinished social, political, and economic progress and struggle, a story in which the troubled legacy of the mixing of races and postcolonial political dysfunction persist to this day.

The Crime of Father Amaro


Eça de Queirós - 1875
    Her budding, devout, dewy-lipped daughter Amélia is soon lusted after by the young priest. What ensues is a secret love affair amidst a host of compelling minor characters: Canon Dias, a priest, glutton, and Sao Joaneira's lover; Dona Maria da Assuncao, a wealthy widow with a roomful of religious relics, agog at any hint of sex; Joao Eduardo, repressed atheist, free-thinker, and suitor to Amelia. Eca's incisive critique flies like a shattering mirror, jabbing everything from the hypocrisy of a rich and powerful Church, to the provincialism of Portuguese society of the time.Haunting, The Crime of Father Amaro is the ghost of a forgotten religion of tolerance, wisdom, and equality. Margaret Jull Costa has rendered an exquisite translation and provides an informative introduction to a story that truly spans all ages." "The Crime of Father Amaro inspired a series of magnificent paintings by the Portuguese artist Paula Rego, one of which graces the cover of this edition. The novel was also made into a controversial film, El Crimen del Padre Amaro by Mexican director Carlos Carrera in 2002."--BOOK JACKET.

Nowhere People


Paulo Scott - 2011
    The indigenous girl stands in the heavy rain, as if waiting for something. Paulo gives her a lift to her family’s roadside camp.With sudden shifts in the characters’ lives, this novel takes in the whole story: telling of love, loss and family, it spans the worlds of São Paulo’s rich kids and dispossessed Guarani Indians along Brazil’s highways. One man escapes into an immigrant squatter’s life in London, while another’s performance activism leads to unexpected fame on Youtube.Written from the gut, it is a raw and passionate classic in the making, about our need for a home.

Losses and Gains: Reflections on a Life with a Foreword by Paolo Coelho


Lya Luft - 2003
    She portrays love as the common thread through all phases of life. As children, the unconditional love we receive from our parents determines our expectations for all the other forms of love we experience later. And as adults, she argues, the complex task of loving another depends, initially, on self-love and self-esteem.Luft's ardent reflections on existence and the human spirit are a powerful reminder to us all: we have lost everything only when we believe we deserve less than everything still to be gained.

Why This World: A Biography of Clarice Lispector


Benjamin Moser - 2009
    Now, after years of research on three continents, drawing on previously unknown manuscripts and dozens of interviews, Benjamin Moser demonstrates how Lispector's development as a writer was directly connected to the story of her turbulent life. Born in the nightmarish landscape of post-World War I Ukraine, Clarice became, virtually from adolescence, a person whose beauty, genius, and eccentricity intrigued Brazil. Why This World tells how this precocious girl, through long exile abroad and difficult personal struggles, matured into a great writer. It also asserts, for the first time, the deep roots in the Jewish mystical tradition that make her the true heir to Kafka as well as the unlikely author of "perhaps the greatest spiritual autobiography of the twentieth century." From Chechelnik to Recife, from Naples and Berne to Washington and Rio de Janeiro, Why This World strips away the mythology surrounding this extraordinary figure and shows how Clarice Lispector transformed one woman's struggles into a universally resonant art.

The Tuner of Silences


Mia Couto - 2009
    Mwanito's been living in a big-game park for eight years. The only people he knows are his father, his brother, an uncle, and a servant. He's been told that the rest of the world is dead, that all roads are sad, that they wait for an apology from God. In the place his father calls Jezoosalem, Mwanito has been told that crying and praying are the same thing. Both, it seems, are forbidden. The eighth novel by The New York Times-acclaimed Mia Couto, The Tuner of Silences is the story of Mwanito's struggle to reconstruct a family history that his father is unable to discuss. With the young woman's arrival in Jezoosalem, however, the silence of the past quickly breaks down, and both his father's story and the world are heard once more. The Tuner of Silences was heralded as one of the most important books to be published in France in 2011 and remains a shocking portrait of the intergenerational legacies of war. Now available for the first time in English.

Here the Whole Time


Vitor Martins - 2017
    Not chubby. Not big-boned. Fat. And he doesn't need anyone to remind him, which is, of course, what everyone does. That's why he's been waiting for this moment ever since the school year began: school break. Finally, he'll be able to spend some time far away from school and the classmates who tease him incessantly. His plans include catching up on his favorite TV shows, finishing his to-be-read pile, and watching YouTube tutorials on skills he'll never actually put into practice.But things get a little out of hand when Felipe's mom informs him that Caio, the neighbor kid from apartment 57, will be spending the next 15 days with them while his parents are on vacation. Felipe is distraught because A) he's had a crush on Caio since, well, forever, and B) Felipe has a list of body image insecurities and absolutely NO idea how he's going to entertain his neighbor for two full weeks.Suddenly, the days ahead of him that once promised rest and relaxation (not to mention some epic Netflix bingeing) end up bringing a whirlwind of feelings, forcing Felipe to dive head-first into every unresolved issue he has had with himself -- but maybe, just maybe, he'll manage to win over Caio, too.

The Lusiads


Luís de Camões
    Portugal's supreme poet Camoes was the first major European artist to cross the equator. The freshness of that original encounter with Africa and India is the very essence of Camoes's vision. The first translation of The Lusiads for almost half a century, this new edition is complemented by an illuminating introduction and extensive notes.

The Servant: A Simple Story About the True Essence of Leadership


James C. Hunter - 1998
    A lively and engrossing tale about the timeless principles of effective leadership from a consultant and trainer in labor relations with over 20 years of experience.