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FREE GRANTA 121: BEST OF YOUNG BRAZILIAN NOVELISTS PDF John Freeman | 256 pages | 13 Nov 2012 | Granta Publications Ltd | 9781905881635 | English | London, United Kingdom Granta Young Brazilian Novelists - 2 SEAS AGENCY | Foreign Rights & More Granta is one of those literary magazines that are read with genuine interest both by literature buffs as well as by those who create literature. The reason for this is the magazine's balanced and dispassionate well, most of the time approach to choosing its topics. Therefore, the selection Granta 121: Best of Young Brazilian Novelists authors is seldom contested. Not just that, in the s' Granta also became a literary forecaster of sorts when it came up with a bold, but not unusual, idea in the form of 'The Best of Young British Novelists' series. Those who flipped through its pages at the time would remember an edition carrying pieces by the likes of Martin Amis, Ian McEwan and Zadie Smith - who were all budding authors at the time. Of course, a majority of them went on to become literary stalwarts. Cashing in on the success of the concept and pushing the envelope, Granta then brought out works by novelists-to-watch-out-for from other parts of the world and published them in English translation. This proved another Granta 121: Best of Young Brazilian Novelists exercise on different levels. First of all, it launched, in a manner of speaking, writers who were not readily accessible to the English-speaking world. Secondly, it brought some exceedingly gifted writers into the limelight, allowing their talent to be acknowledged outside their countries. There Granta 121: Best of Young Brazilian Novelists writings by 20 Brazilian authors in Granta 121: Best of Young Brazilian Novelists magazine and all of them are a delight to read. However, I disagree with the notion presented in the foreword to the edition, that "this is a generation less interested than those that have preceded it in the question of a Brazilian identity. The first story in the magazine is 'Animals' by journalist and novelist Michel Laub. It is understandable why the editors at Granta 121: Best of Young Brazilian Novelists chose it as the curtain-raiser. The story has layers of meaning with a symbiotic feel. The narrator is lamenting the loss of a dog called Champion. But it is not that uncomplicated. As can be gauged by the title of the story, it is not a single animal that the writer is alluding to as the family of the protagonist and a Korean neighbour who owns a biscuit factory comes into view to form a sensitive personal account. The tone shifts from personal to semi-political with 'Violeta' by Miguel Del Granta 121: Best of Young Brazilian Novelists, an editor at a publishing house. I say semi-political because it's a poignantly penned narrative about the mother, Violeta, of a man who disappears "during the military dictatorship in Uruguay. Though the collection contains 20 short pieces translated by different people, yet, for some inexplicable reason, the translations have a touch of uniformity to them. They convey the content Granta 121: Best of Young Brazilian Novelists and clear and create an urge in the reader to go through the original texts. Take, for example, the short story 'Rat Fever' by journalist and screenwriter Javier Arancibia Contreras and translated by Jethro Soutar. It is a touching tale of a man handicapped by a leg injury and alone in a house. His mother's death keeps recurring in the scheme of things and exacerbates his psychologically damaged state. The loneliness gnaws at his soul and perhaps comforts him at the same timeconvincingly conveyed by the evocative narrative of the story. And what's the profession of the protagonist? Ironically, he's a translator. The following is a passage from 'Rat Fever' to support the argument: "Contrary to appearances, I'm not a writer, playwright, scriptwriter, columnist, journalist or anything of the sort. I am merely a translator. But not one of the trivial ones who translate from boring, insipid languages like English. I translate directly from uncommon languages, grammatically complex and unmelodious languages like the Scandinavian ones. What brings me most pride and massages my ego is that I'm considered the only proficient and qualified professional in the country capable of translating directly from the most mysterious, dialectic and literary of all the Slavic languages, Russian. Her story reads like literary reportage which it is not and touches on the subject of art, artists and identity as craftily as the storyteller in the story. Again, the translation by Anna Kushner is impressive, and it increases the reader's respect for the author and the language in which it's originally written. The verdict: Granta is a must-read, especially if you are interested in South American literature. Facebook Count. Twitter Share. Read more. On DawnNews. Comments 0 Closed. Latest stories. No right to censor. Maryam, Safdar booked for creating public disorder en route Gujranwala rally. Sindh IG defers leave, orders his officers to set aside their leave applications for 10 days. Will visit Quaid's mausoleum every Oct 18 and raise slogans for the mother of the nation: Safdar. Must read. The PM has the rare quality of pushing everyone into the opposition camp. Zubair Abbasi. Images Staff. Rafia Zakaria. Programmes and workshops against gender-based violence are of no use in Pakistan. Sajjad Ahmad. The people are expecting a provisional provincial status. Mahir Ali. There is happy news from New Zealand and Bolivia. Arifa Noor. The long march was a staple of the political script in the s as well as in the post period. Review of Granta The Best of Young Brazilian Novelists - Newspaper - Goodreads helps you keep track of books you want to read. Want to Read saving…. Want to Read Currently Reading Read. Other editions. Enlarge cover. Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Open Preview See a Problem? Details if other :. Thanks for telling us about the problem. Return to Book Page. Preview — Granta by John Freeman. Plus: look for candid interviews, exclusive podcasts, and interactive features, which allow readers to comment on current and past issues, on our website, granta. Get A Copy. Paperbackpages. More Details Original Title. Other Editions 4. Friend Reviews. To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up. To ask other readers questions about Grantaplease sign up. Lists with This Book. Community Reviews. Showing Average rating 3. Rating details. More filters. Sort order. Nov 12, Lawrence rated it liked it. I like when Granta does these best of young novelists editions. Not sure that the pieces selected always works especially when the pieces are taken from larger works. It's more successful when the piece selected is itself a self-contained story. But I read every piece and I find some writers whose works I want to explore more. Hate that I have to wait for works to then be translated into English. My limitation, of course. But why do publishers think that Americans don't want to read works by non-English writers. Good writing in any language deserves to Granta 121: Best of Young Brazilian Novelists translated and read. So much thanks to those who have the job of translating! Keep up the good work. As a Portuguese to English translator I was thrilled to see this edition and positive about the prospect of introducing more readers to contemporary Brazilian writing. Unfortunately none of the selected pieces really jumped out and moved me the way so much writing of Brazil has over the past few years. A wonderful buffet of twenty stories by twenty young Brazilian writers. The stories that showed the echoes of the various Latin American dictatorships of the 's were among my favorites Violeta, The Dinner. Although the authors were either not yet born or were very Granta 121: Best of Young Brazilian Novelists during those turbulent times, it was very interesting to see how they have not escaped the brutality entirely. A couple of the non-political stories that I liked a lot were plain old good storytelling Evo Morales, Every T A wonderful buffet of twenty stories by twenty young Brazilian writers. In terms of writing style, many of the stories were told in extremely convoluted ways, several so much so that I had trouble figuring out what was going on. Must have been a fad going on among writers at the time. I did not care much for those stories. A couple were downright inscrutable, or had no main point, or seemed so focused on mundane details that I couldn't figure out the point Animals, Lettuce Nights, Teresa, That Wind Blowing Through the Plaza, A Temporary Stay, Far from Ramiro, Sparks, Lion, Still Life I cannot fail to mention that the quality of the translations was uniformly excellent. Nov 29, Michael Vagnetti rated it liked it. A goer when the writing stops explaining things in concrete, well-crafted sentences. When it's trying to be important, I'm reminded of Amis' hilarious essay somewhere on amateur writing contests "The sun was bakingly hot. I found myself slightly beside myself at the future for me and Brazilian literature in English. The dialogue in "Apnoeia," for example, almost reads itself aloud, and "Still Life" is oblique and welcomely unaccommodat A goer when the writing stops explaining things in concrete, well-crafted sentences. The dialogue in "Apnoeia," for example, Granta 121: Best of Young Brazilian Novelists reads itself aloud, and "Still Life" is oblique and welcomely unaccommodating, with swaths of text in italics that roll in like a puzzle in a fog.