Modern Brazilian Short Stories (Anthology) Edited by William Grossman Original language: Portuguese Country: Brazil   Published by California UP: Berkeley Pub. Date: 1967 Pub. Place: USA Format: Paperback, 167 pages List Price: £2.50 Not available for ordering

An anthology with sixteen Brazilian authors, first published in 1967 but still worth having today because created with such authority, professionalism and passion. Published by a US-based University press it may need a bit of tracking down in the UK.

There are here, as well as the great and the good already well-known in the Anglo-Saxon world, some authors considered highly in Brazil but not otherwise translated. An example is Marques Rebelo with his poignant story ‘The Beautiful Rabbits’, about childhood’s insecurities and rivalries but with a sting of social critique in it too.

Mário de Andrade, the great man of Brazilian modernism famous for his extraordinary myth-novel Macunaima, is represented here with ‘It can hurt plenty’, an expert, moving story told, like Rebelo’s, from a child’s point of view. ‘It can hurt plenty’ is a small, casual masterpiece, as humane as Chekov, as socially aware as Orwell.

Other major stories in the collection are ‘Metonomy’ by Rachel de Queirós, written with great ‘spring’ and encapsulating very well the frequent ironic strain in Brazilian writing; ‘The Thief’ by Graciliano Ramos — like Rachel de Queirós another famous social novelist — is short with a sharp, filmic quality and finally there is Guimarães Rosa’s The Third Bank of the River, a birthday present of a story, stunningly profound and resonant, a genuine touch of the spiritual. It would be worth getting the book for this story alone.

A genial part of this anthology is the provision of potted biographies at the end of each story; lives of Brazilian authors are often interesting in themselves. Altogether Brazilian Short Stories is an excellent starting point to explore Brazilian writing.

She was home. But could you really call it a home? It looked like one of those road huts where the mule drivers rest. Just about as dirty. Two things that looked vaguely like chairs. One table. One bed. On the floor there was a mattress where the cockroaches lived. At night they came out and danced on the old lady’s face. After all, where do all the insects of this world perform their tribal dances? On somebody’s face, right? 13 Mário de Andrade ‘It Can Hurt Plenty’