Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} Luxúria by Fernando Bonassi Updates, thoughts and things to come. Frankfurt Book Fair has come and gone, and the number of Brazilian writers invited could be counted on one hand. I had intended to do a longer write-up about this, but to be honest, my feelings of frustration and disappointment surrounding certain things going on in Brazil at the moment, both politically and economically, have reached such numbing levels that I just don't have it in me. Instead, I'm going to plug the incredible authors who did go to Frankfurt. What the delegation lacked in size, they more than served up in literary prowess. Noemi Jaffe recently published the incredible novel, Irisz: as orquídeas (Irisz: Orchids) . The year isn't over yet, but I already know this is my favorite book of 2015. Review soon to come. Check out the gorgeous cover of Fernando Bonassi 's new book, Luxúria (Lust). I recently did a sample from this book, and will be putting together a review soon. Ricardo Lísias , one of Granta's best young Brazilian writers, was also there. You can read more about him here. Lísias is the current Writer-in- Residence at the Department of Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American Studies at the University College London (UCL). If you happen to be in London, he will speaking at the Brazilian Embassy with Francisco Vilhena, editorial assistant at Granta, on Thursday, December 3, 2015 at 6pm. More info here. Luis Krausz was invited as a translator, but he's a talented author in his own right. His second novel, Deserto (The Desert/Deserted) won the Benvirá prize. It's a lovely book that I'm long overdue in reviewing here. I'd also like to note the three Brazilian editors invited, representing the best and brightest in indy publishing in Brazil: Raquel Menezes (Oficina de Raquel), Cide Piquet (Editora 34) and William Oliveira (Apicuri). One of the most delightful memories of my residency this past July was the rainy afternoon I spent hanging out in the Editora 34 offices in São Paulo. They are doing amazing, inspiring things and have an incredible list. Brazil had just a slightly smaller showing at the Boston Book Festival, where Pessoa magazine launched the English version of their special issue (originally released in French at the Paris Book Fair) of translated contemporary Brazilian literature, with work by 25 authors from across the country in prose, poetry, children's lit and theater. Writers include: Alexandre Vidal Porto, Evandro Affonso Ferreira (both translated by me), Elvira Vigna, Andrea Del Fuego, Jacques Fux, Alexandre Staut, Luisa Geisler, Amilcar Bettega, Luci Collin, Ana Martins Marques, Adriana Lisboa, Eucanaã Ferraz, Alice Sant’Anna, Nuno Ramos, Mariana Ianelli, Dora Ribeiro, Moacir Amâncio, Ana Elisa Ribeiro, Alberto Bresciani, Daniel Munduruku, Cintia Moscovich, Lúcia Hiratsuka, Maria Valéria Rezende and Paula Autran. Alexandre Vidal Porto, Luisa Geisler and Nuno Ramos were all in Boston for the launch, where they participated in a roundtable discussion. And, the Guadalajara International Book Fair rolls around at the end of this month. After sending sizable delegations in recent years, I'm finding it impossible to locate any information about this year's authors from Brazil. Is no one going? Have they just not announced the names yet (never outside the realm of possibilities)? If anyone has any information, please let me know. The Brazilian National Library just announced the winners of their 2015 awards , in Poetry, Novel, Short Story, Translation, Graphic Design, Young Adult, Children's, Literary Essay and Social Essay. Indy publishing was in the spotlight, with only three winners published by one of the big houses. The winner of the Best Novel prize was the amazing Turismo para cegos (Tourism for the Blind) by Tércia Montenegro , published by Companhia das Letras. This book is definitely in my top three of 2015. Review coming soon. Finally, I want to mention a few other brand new releases I'm excited about. My favorite, Lourenço Mutarelli, has just published his first novel since 2010's A Arte de Fazer Efeito sem Causa , O Grifo de Abdera (The Griffin of Abdera), which blends straight prose with graphic novel. I haven't read it yet, but it looks to be his best and most ambitious work, and impressive experiment, yet. Zoë Perry. “A New House” by Carol Bensimon, in Cuíer , Two Lines Press, co-translated with Julia Sanches, forthcoming 2021. Sevastopol by Emilio Fraia, New Directions (US) & Lolli Editions (UK), 2021. “The Trash-Pickers” by João Anzanello Carrascoza, Latin American Literature Today , Number 18, June 2021. “Like a pope, at the edge of a well” - a selection of short pieces by Veronica Stigger, The White Review , January 2021. “The Most Beautiful Ruins” by Carol Bensimon, Litro , co-translated with Julia Sanches, 25 September 2020. “Sevastapol” (originally entitled “Agosto”) from Sebastapol by Emilio Fraia, The New Yorker , 16 December 2019. Excerpt from Our Joy Has Come by Alexandra Lucas Coelho, Springhouse Journal , November 2019. Excerpt from The Smoke Gardeners' Club by Carol Bensimon, The Washington Square Review , October 2017. "The Last Winter" by Vanessa Barbara, in Sobras , Chose Commune, 2017. Selected chapters from Opisanie Swiata by Veronica Stigger, The Missing Slate , February 2017. Selected passages from Forest Diaries by Betty Mindlin, Glossolalia - Women Writing Brazil , August 2016. "The Time Left" by Carlos Henrique Schroeder, Words Without Borders - Brazil Beyond Rio Issue , July 2016. The Spy by Paulo Coelho, Random House, 2016. Extract from Luxúria by Fernando Bonassi, Machado de Assis Magazine, November 2015. Extract from Que Fim Levou a Juliana Klein? by Marcos Peres, Machado de Assis Magazine, November 2015. "Tupi's Widow" by Alexandre Vidal Porto, Revista Pessoa - Contemporary Brazilian Literature: Special Edition, October 2015. "Diary of a Lyrical Nihilist" by Evandro Affonso Ferreira, Revista Pessoa - Contemporary Brazilian Literature: Special Edition, October 2015. Extract from Opisanie swiata by Veronica Stigger, Machado de Assis Magazine, March 2015. 'When Did I Become a Writer?' by Mia Couto, Granta Online, December 4, 2014. Elza: The Girl by Sérgio Rodrigues, AmazonCrossing, 2014. Adultery by Paulo Coelho, in collaboration with Margaret Jull Costa, Random House, 2014. 'The Woman Who Slept with a Horse' by João Ximenes Braga, The Book of Rio, June 2014, Comma Press. All Dogs are Blue by Rodrigo de Souza Leão, co-translated with Stefan Tobler, And Other Stories, 2013 . HONORS & AWARDS. In 2020 I was selected for a residency at the Banff International Translation Centre for my translation of Emilio Fraia’s Sevastopol. In November 2019 I was awarded a fully-funded translation residency at the Cove Park International Artists Residency Centre in Scotland. My translation of "Families", by Alvaro Mendes, was an official finalist at the 2016 Beverly Hills Screenplay Contest, Drama Competition. I received a 2015 PEN/Heim Translation Fund grant for my translation of Opisanie swiata by Veronica Stigger. I was Translator-in-Residence at the 2015 Paraty International Literary Festival (FLIP), sponsored by FLIP and the British Council. EDUCATION. 2008 MA Intercultural Communication, Anglia Ruskin University 2003 BA French & International Studies, with Honors, Guilford College. MEMBERSHIPS. American Literary Translators Association (ALTA) Translators Association (Society of Authors) Emerging Literary Translators Network (ETN) RELEVANT WORK EXPERIENCE. 2017 – Founding Member of The Starling Bureau. 2011 – present Freelance Translator. 2007 – 2011 Editor/Translation Coordinator FPP Edu-Media, São Paulo, Brazil. 2003 – 2005 Project Manager/In-House Translator Language Resources, Inc., Greensboro, NC, USA. EVENTS. October 2019 : “A Collective of Collectives” panel discussion at the ALTA conference, Rochester, NY. January 2019: London Book Fair Roundtable discussion as part of the National Centre for Writing’s Industry Day. March 2017: Panel discussion at the Translators Association Pre-LBF Translation Symposium. February 2017: Translation Workshop with 4th Year Portuguese students at the University of Edinburgh. July 2015: Talk with Alison Entrekin, chaired by Sophie Lewis, Casa SESC, FLIP (Paraty International Literary Festival), Paraty, Brazil. June 2015: Talk with author Sérgio Rodrigues, chaired by Rachel Bertol, part of the "O autor e seu tradutor" series, Brazilian National Library, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. June 2015: Panel discussion on literary translation residencies with Dirceu Villa, chaired by Paulo Werneck, Casa Guilherme de Almeida, São Paulo, Brazil. September 2014: Translation duel with Lucy Greaves, chaired by Daniel Hahn, of short story entitled 'Three Days' by Brazilian author Daniel Galera at Flipside Festival, Snape Maltings, Suffolk. August 2014: Panel discussion on 'Brazilian Literature – Challenges for Translation', King's College London, UK . 10 Works of Fiction to Better Understand Brazil. To explain reality is not a primary function of fiction. Fiction can, however, have that particular side effect. Last Thursday saw Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff dismissed by a vote in Brazil’s senate, marking the beginning of a long impeachment process. All of this is set against a wide- reaching corruption scandal that involves the full spectrum of Brazilian politics, including some of the country’s largest contractors (and chief campaign donors). Not only might the following Brazilian books help give Americans a better understanding of Brazil as it undergoes a major institutional crisis, they might actually help Brazilian readers understand that the current crisis is neither incidental nor localized, but represents the emersion of old problems into the current moment. As these books are yet to be translated, I’ll also recommend five titles available in English that cover, to a certain extent, similar themes. Clara dos Anjos , by Lima Barreto (c. 1922, published in 1948) This novel, at first meant to be a “black Germinal ” (as the author phrased it, as early as in 1905, in one diary entry), is a welcome anomaly amid its context, specifically, post-abolitionist, early republican Brazil. Its protagonist, a young, mixed-raced woman who lives on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro, is in all aspects a marginal character in her society. Young Clara, educated by her family in the fashion of the white petite-bourgeoisie, is seduced and abandoned by Cassi Jones, a white malandro— the carioca definition for a rogue. Lima Barreto depicts Clara as a frail, amorphous character, thus making her representative not of her individual situation, but of the whole class of black women submitted to social and sexual abuse at the time. Afonso Henriques de Lima Barreto (Rio de Janeiro, 1881), a black man himself, was a journalist, and his entire literary corpus springs from his sharp observation of city life and its characters. The condition of women abused by their partners is one of the themes he developed in his oeuvre, along with the social situations of black people and the mentally ill. His work is inhabited by people who were, to a certain extent, outcasts like himself. The problems Lima Barreto addresses are still alive today and feed Brazilian society’s fears and fractures—especially the widely denied racism which is a part of why Lima Barreto’s oeuvre was largely overlooked. Misogyny is also a serious problem in Brazil and is apparent particularly in the way some political leaders and commentators refer to Dilma Rousseff, the first woman to be elected president in Brazil. The book’s first chapter was excerpted in the magazine Mundo Literário in May 1922. Between 1923 and 1924, the novel was published in installments and only in 1948 as a book. The original manuscript is lost, and the editions we have depend on the feuilleton . Clara dos Anjos is considered a minor work in Lima Barreto’s oeuvre, one in need of refinement. Although Lima Barreto began working on it early in his literary life, even before his first novel was published, the book that we read now is likely not his final rendition. Lima Barreto did not live to see the modernist movement, whose principles were established in a manifesto presented during the Modern Art Week in February, 1922, by Oswald de Andrade, a poet and novelist from the white elite of Sao Paulo. Lima Barreto died later that year at the age of 41, his heart failing after many years of alcoholism. In English, read The Sad End of Policarpo Quaresma , by Lima Barreto, trans. Mark Carlyon (Penguin Classics) O Quinze , by Rachel de Queiroz (1930) While in São Paulo and Rio, the modernist group fought for the local assimilation of the European avant-garde; authors from the Northeast, later reunited under the label of “regionalists,” fought for the backlands of Brazil. Rachel de Queiroz was 19 when she wrote O Quinze. The title translates to “The year of 1915,” when a severe drought in her native state, Ceará, forced intense internal migration. The novel has two parallel and interwoven plots. On one hand, there is the story of Conceição, a young teacher from a family of landowners near Quixadá. She lives in Fortaleza and sustains a flirt with a cousin, Vicente. While she has intellectual aspirations, Vicente chooses early in life to be a farmer, taking personal care of the family land and cattle. Then we have the story of Chico Bento, a cattle caretaker who loses his job when his employer decides to let his herd die of starvation, considering that, without rain, their care is not worth the investment. He sells his meagre possessions and “removes” himself (the verb used in Brazil is retirar-se , derived from retirantes , “removers”) with his family—his wife, her sister, and five children, the youngest of which is Conceição and Vicente’s godchild. He is headed for Amazonia, where men were required to work in the latex industry, but the harsh journey will lead him to Fortaleza and, from there, after many misadventures, to São Paulo. The action is narrated in brief chapters, in a language that is as raw as the environment in which it takes place, leaving no room for sentimentalism. The theme of the drought has never left the Brazilian imagination, and still haunts the lives of those in the backlands. The persistence of the problem has forced generations out of their original states to other regions, especially to the Southeast and more particularly to Rio and São Paulo. The massive internal migration was never well-absorbed, and the immense contingent of people coming from the Northeast helped to inflate the urban centers, which are, to this day, marked by inequality. This short, intense novel explores much: the frailty of the law (labor regulations were virtually non-existent in Brazil up to 1943), corruption, the failures of charity (in place of the necessary government investment), and racial prejudice. Rachel de Queiroz was praised from the start of her career and made a living by writing for the press. In fact, the aspirations of her character Conceição were probably similar to her own. In the years that followed, she wrote more books and was the first woman to enter the Brazilian Academy of Letters, though she’s been somewhat forgotten. Although gender could have played a role in de Queiroz taking a backseat to other regionalists like José Lins do Rego and Graciliano Ramos (who, when reading, O Quinze , thought the book was written by a man, despite the name on the cover), her political leanings are more likely to blame for the diminished appraisal of her oeuvre. At first a communist, she later became an open supporter of the military coup that usurped João Goulart’s government in 1964, a movement that was never quite forgiven by an intellectual class almost entirely opposed to the dictatorial regime that followed, until 1985. You can read, in English, Barren Lives , by Graciliano Ramos, trans. Ralph Edward Dimmick (University of Texas Press, 1971) Leão-de-Chácara , by João Antonio (1975) When the military coup came, Brazil had already started to shift from a rural country to an urban one, in part due to the aforementioned problems (which the deposed government was beginning to address by, for example, sketching a plan for agrarian reform). The way in which the dictatorial regime decided to face them was rather different, propelling what was to be called the “Brazilian Miracle,” an economic bonanza fed by foreign capital invested in infrastructure areas, that contributed in no degree to lessen inequality. While the whole country heard the government technocrats affirm that it was necessary “to wait for the dough to rise before the cake could be shared,” many people—African-Brazilians, migrants, the marginalized—who inhabited the urban centers and their outskirts, were forgotten. Born in a peripheral region of São Paulo, João Antônio left his hometown and moved to Rio some years after the publication of his literary debut, Malagueta, Perus e Bacanaço (1963). There, he started writing more and collaborating with what he would call “ imprensa nanica, ” or, “dwarfed press”: the small newspapers and mags that flourished in the 1960s and 70s and resisted the regime and its censorship. João Antônio chose to write about those living on the outskirts of society, like Lima Barreto, whose name he mentioned whenever possible and to whose memory he dedicated his books, proclaiming that the author’s talent was overlooked. Like Lima Barreto, he was also a journalist, and his fiction was based on his close contact to the real characters he met in the streets. His second book, Leão-de-chácara— the title translates to “bouncer”— has four stories, three of which take place in Rio, and the last one, in São Paulo. It was a success, confirming João Antônio’s name as a “underworld interpreter.” He wrote with the language of the streets and from the point of view of those who walk invisible to us, yet side by side to us–for “what the streets know best is how to make people mingle,” as he writes in one of his stories, Três Cunhadas – Natal de 1960 (“Three sisters-in-law – Christmas, 1960”). You can read, in English, The Hour of the Star , by Clarice Lispector, trans. Benjamin Moser (New Directions, 2011) Você Vai Voltar pra Mim , Bernardo Kucinski (2014) Bernardo Kucinski (São Paulo, 1937) contains a personal story concerning Brazil’s dictatorship: his sister “was disappeared” by the regime. The tortuous verbal regency indicates that those people, the “desaparecidos,” went missing by the hand of the dictatorship and were, in most cases, never found. From that experience, Kucinski, who had dedicated his professional life to—guess what?—journalism, wrote the powerful K (2011). The novel, whose title evokes Kafka’s maddening bureaucracy books, retraces the experience of his father’s search for Ana Rosa. The book was shortlisted for the most important Brazilian literary prizes. Você Vai Voltar pra Mim (“you are coming back to me”) is like a gallery of characters whose lives were tainted by the dictatorship in different levels. In his short stories, Kucinski seems to have attained more control of his writing. Even if the facts retold in Você Vai Voltar pra Mim are closer to his experience, they seem more distant than the tragic story in K , in which sometimes one could notice the effort to “sound literary.” This second book is a page-turner, and by the end you get a sense of what living under the dark grasp of the dictatorship was like. It depicts an experience not to be repeated nor forgotten. Its reading should be advised to those who, unsatisfied with Dilma Rousseff’s re-election, marched upon the streets asking for a military intervention against her government—a group that included youngsters born after 1985, when democracy was reestablished in Brazil. You can read, in English, K , by Bernardo Kucinski, trans. Sue Branford (Latin American Bureau, 2015) Luxúria , by Fernando Bonassi (2015) Fernando Bonassi (São Paulo, 1962) is the only writer in this list who hasn’t worked in journalism. He studied cinema and has a solid career as screenwriter, and is a writer of adult and children books. His adult novels mostly deal with the reality of the city. The restrained violence we all carry within us is considered a thematic mark of his narratives. In Luxúria (“lust”), his first novel in a long while, Bonassi focuses on the life of a working class man and his family, a fictional model of many families that achieved social ascension through consumer goods. The maximalist symbol of this newly acquired power is the decision of the protagonist to construct a swimming pool in their rather modest house, a common dwelling in a planned neighborhood aimed at those who would benefit from the newly acquired culture of credit. Churches occupy the space once destined to movie-theaters, the un-diagnosed depression of the wife, the nebulous world inside the mind of the undisciplined son, the rage the man carries inside him and to which he tries to give escape through sex—everything in this novel creates an atmosphere of anxiety associated with the lack of perspectives that haunts, in different ways, all of its characters. This tense novel is a fine example of Bonassi’s skills and, at the same time, is possibly the first piece of fiction to critically depict the immediate consequences of the “lulismo,” a term derived from the eight-year period of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, which led to Dilma Rousseff’s first (and maybe only) five years at the presidency. You can read, in English, There Were Many Horses , by Luiz Ruffato, trans. Anthony Doyle (AmazonCrossing, 2014) Discovery of Brazils in 15 Scenes. Fernando Bonassi’s unusual and fragmented short story “Discovery of Brazils in 15 Scenes” (“15 Cenas de descobrimento de Brasis”) has no unified narrative, plot, or character. Instead, the piece relies on the greater picture it presents, on its cumulative effect. The fifteen fragments cohere in part because of the revealing title, but especially because of the repeated returning to the story’s main themes: national identity, exploitation of women and people of color, colonial paradigms, the story’s own repeated rupture. As I read it, Bonassi’s unflinching historical revisionism not only exposes Brazil’s colonial present and the fatal consequences of imperialism and capitalism, but narrates the very creation and subsequent destruction of the world—a world where people make the same terrible mistakes over and over again. Bonassi was born in São Paulo in 1962 and has written everything from essays and novels to plays and film. Luxúria ( Lust ), his 2015 novel about the promise and failure of the “Brazilian dream,” was a finalist for the Oceanos Prize. Click anywhere below to read the story in the original Portuguese. We’re still not used to the world. Being born takes time. —Murilo Mendes, “Reflexão número 1” Scene 1 THE HISTORY OF IDEAS First came the man, with his head down and naked. God arrived on a lightning bolt. Then came the animals that eat men. And then there was fire, exotic spices, clothes, the sword and the duty. Then philosophy was created, which explained how not to do what shouldn’t be done. And then came rational numbers and History, organizing events meaninglessly. Hunger always was, of things and people. Sedatives and stimulants were created. And someone turned off the light. And everyone makes do with what they have, ripping off the scabs they can reach. Scene 2 ECOTOURISM The missionaries arrived and covered what of the savages made them feel shame. Then made them memorize the Hail Mary. Then taught them good manners, how to care for their hygiene, and got them jobs at the jungle resorts, where guests arrive with whiskey in hand. There would be some exemplary humanitarian reasoning here, if it weren’t for the fact that the Indians were sleeping with the guests. Nothing would make them change. Their husbands, too high to care, don’t wear their horns. At any rate, everyone gets their share. Only our civilizing God seems to have missed yet another chance. Scene 3 REFLECTION Juruena doesn’t recognize her image in the mirror. Not in a specific mirror, but in any surface that returns her. She finds and loses herself in glass windows, metal countertops, dishes … There’s a real difference between the expression on her face and the one that now appears. She dances, jumps up and down, punches the air … and arrives late to her own gestures. It’s more comical than concerning, her escaping from herself like this. She’s not one bit interested in keeping herself company. I’d say it’s best for her not to meet her other self at all, until they sort out their differences. Scene 4 PLANALTO CENTRAL Wilson’s full name is Wilson Patachó, but that’s written all over his face. Between Paranã and Gurupi, everyone knows him as “Indian.” Actually, they know him as “Shell Indian.” Wilson, or Shell Indian, is also known for doing business at the Shell gas station with the truckers. He has two daughters to offer. You can pick them up in Paranã and drop them off in Gurupi, or vice versa. One is called Cibele Patachó and the other is Pamela Patachó. Cibele has all her teeth. Pamela has none and, precisely for that reason, she’s the white man’s favorite. Scene 5 SLAUGHTER When the four of them made their plan, the fifth one was already dead, but he didn’t know it yet and carried on. And since everything that lives also tires, he slept. So it took him too long to open the door that night. He ran for it, since everything that lives also runs for its life. A losing chase. Their spokesman was tied up, so no one said a word. Plenty gunshots, which no neighbor heard. His body stiffened under the bed in that twisted position, like it wanted to bite the wind that comes through our mouths. Scene 6 THE AUTOCHTHONS An Indian so stupid it’s sad! Every morning he shows up at the bar and spends all the money his wife made the previous night on beer. He drinks until he loses reason, wastes his afternoons pissing, then returns to collect what he spent. He can’t be made to understand that by drinking like a fish he uses up every fucking penny he has (or his wife has, I don’t know … ). That it works like this: things move from one hand to another in a moment … That is: these colorful pieces of paper and metal circles now belong to the fellow behind the counter. It’s so clear in its stupidity it confuses the rest of us! Scene 7 A CURSE Don’t be fooled. She’s the most ragged woman you’ll ever meet and doesn’t do a thing to change it. She has fewer teeth than you have fingers. So thin you can’t see her in profile. Stains, welts, scars in place of clear skin. The milky eyes because of the shit she smoked. She presses the dirty magazine on the windshield and yells out the price. She won’t utter another word that day. No doubt about it. The eyes. It can only be those shattered glass eyes … The issue is that you look inside them, you slip, cut yourself all over. You really fall, understand? My friend, you never get up. It’s a goddamn curse. Scene 8 TIRADENTES In the early ’70s, gold miners pulled their own teeth. In cold blood, of course. So when Paulão traveled north with a bag full of Prilocaine, he was immediately successful. Long after the gold veins disappeared, Paulão was still selling anesthetics. But now his major clients were all Indians. Most of them didn’t even have teeth to pull. He still comes to São Paulo from time to time, and returns with two or three bags of the stuff (which the Indians pay for with whatever they have). The only explanation, he believes, is that the Indians can’t bear the taste of their own spit these days. Scene 9 SONG OF EXILE My land has soccer fields where corpses lie face down to mess with the games. It has tiny pebbles, bile green, that ricochet and hit people in the head with a tuim . It also has concrete walls (no paint, of course, because it’s a pain to use with no thinners), with glass shards on top to deter the malacos . My land has the HK, the AR-15, the M21, the 45, and the 38 (in my land, the 32 is a joke). The sirens that blare here always blare with no warning, and late. They don’t belong to the factories anymore, which have closed. They’re from police cars that come to make cripples, to bring calm and fear. Scene 10 BLESSING Every Saturday Mariano brings a new wax piece to the Church of São Judas. He brings an arm, then prays; then a thigh, then prays; a breast … and so forth. In two months he will have the entire body, the head on top and the sandals underneath everything else. That day, he thinks of lighting a thick candle as big as Jacira, who doesn’t exist yet. He thinks that when he prays for the very last time, lungless Jacira will stand on her own two feet and walk, her heels clacking across the tiles. Mariano also thinks he’ll be able to enjoy her for quite some time before she melts in the sun. Scene 11 HALLOWEEN I just came here to say that all the things you said really did happen. All the careful words you used, trying “to protect me,” well … They formed a thick cloud of misfortune in my life. One by one, I lost the support of my own elbows. Actually, you already knew that. What I really lost was all shame by coming here. I don’t even know if you tricked me. You’re good like that! You and these filthy letters. You’re both worth the fucking hundred bucks I gave you, which I could really use now. You’re a hell of a witch. This is all I came here to say. Scene 12 BUSINESS HEADLINES The stocks fall, the airplanes fall, the window cleaners fall. A butterfly flaps its wings in Seoul and tchotchkes fall off dressers in Osasco. Analysts and speculators grow deeper pockets. Mediterranées doesn’t have any openings until 2003. For less than fifty bucks you can get a Saint Laurent for the inheritance. Next Monday, evidence shows, 1929 will be a joke. Henrique barely made his half million and he’s already being collected by the wrath of those elements. It’s why he abuses his credit card against the powder on the table while eliminating costs. Scene 13 1964 It’s really possible that this was a terrific year, I don’t know. The bossa nova that played on the radio, the movies winning awards, how easy it was to find someone to shout with and those divorces devastating generations … The players who marked Garrincha with their broken spines. The simplicity of book covers and of people’s desires. It’s true: the military officers were already coming up with ideas, but they had yet to do the worst of it. If you can say it, it’s possible … I was too small then. I can only remember that most things, when they fell, made a terrible thunder in my ears. Scene 14 THE BRAZILIANS Two of every three Brazilians have smoked weed. Three of every five Brazilians believe in God. Five of every eight Brazilians have chewed the wafer during communion. Eight of every thirteen Brazilians prefer anal sex. Thirteen of every seventeen Brazilians with a license have thought of crashing a car into a pole just to see what happens. Seventeen of every twenty Brazilians don’t know that the Marlboro Man is an actor. Twenty of every twenty-two Brazilians don’t own any land. Twenty-two of every twenty-three Brazilians believe their bad luck is personal. Scene 15 THE END TV shows a “dead zone” around Marajó Island. Fish float in bulk. Buffalos sink in the mud. Birds throw themselves against electric poles. Horses break their legs. The vegetation kneels down in the rain. Cars spin like tops until trees behead their occupants. Airplanes give up. Guns go off accidentally. War bonnets commit suicide in the Atlantic among clashing ships. Some look for a Moses to push them. Someone recalls the end of the dinosaurs. Experts are perplexed that humans don’t have a hand in any of this. Luxúria by Fernando Bonassi. Ligia Bezerra was born in Várzea Alegre, Ceará, Brazil. She moved to the United States in 2006, where she completed a master's in Portuguese at the University of New Mexico and a doctorate in Portuguese with a minor in cultural studies at Indiana University. She also holds a master's in linguistics from Universidade Federal do Ceará. She taught Portuguese and English language and linguistics in Brazil, and has taught Portuguese and Spanish language and Lusophone literature and culture in the United States. Bezerra's research interests include Latin American literature and culture, consumption, and everyday life. She has published articles in journals such as Chasqui, the Journal of Lusophone Studies (formerly known as ellipsis), and the Revista de Estudos de Literatura Brasileira Contemporânea . Her book, A Consuming World: Imagining Everyday Life in Twenty-First Century Brazilian Fiction (Purdue University Press, forthcoming), presents an in-depth study of the representation of consumer culture in contemporary Brazilian literature, including the work of writers such as Ana Paula Maia, Marcus Vinícius Faustini and Fernando Bonassi. Her next project focuses on twenty-first century songs of protest in Brazilian Popular Music and investigates how Brazilian Popular Music is articulating resistance to anti-democratic forces in the current social and political climate. Education. Ph.D. Portuguese; minor: Cultural Studies, Indiana University M.A. Portuguese, University of New Mexico M.A. Linguistics, Universidade Federal do Ceara B.A. Letras (Portuguese and English), Universidade Federal do Ceara. Research Interests. Consumer culture, everyday life, contemporary Latin American fiction, Lusophone literature and culture. Publications. Articles in Refereed Journals. “Citizens of Nowhere: Undocumented Migrants in Regina Rheda’s Narratives.” Veredas: Revista da Associação Internacional de Lusitanistas , no. 28, 2017, pp. 19-33. DOI: https://doi.org/10.24261/2183-816x28. “The Business of Writing: Literature as a Commodity in Claudia Piñeiro’s Betibú .” Cultural Studies , vol. 33, no. 2, 2019, pp. 325-41. https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/W3MDngECnAgqUbs53DNg/full. “A representação da cultura de consumo em Eles eram muitos cavalos .” Estudos de literatura brasileira contemporânea , vol. 48, 2016, pp. 177- 190. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1590/2316-4018489. “Um quase-africano Fradique: Resignificações de Fradique Mendes em Nação crioula: a correspondência secreta de Fradique Mendes , de José Eduardo Agualusa.” Ellipsis , vol. 13, 2015, pp. 79-94. “Cenas cotidianas: Cultura de consumo e media em contos de André Sant’Anna.” Estudos de literatura brasileira contemporânea , vol. 45, 2015, pp. 261-79. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1590/2316-40184514. “Everyday Life in the McOndo World: Consumption and Politics in Claudia Piñeiro’s Las viudas de los jueves. ” Chasqui , vol. 41 no. 2, 2012, pp. 19-32. “Sabiás, macieiras da Califórnia e cadáveres em campos de futebol: imagens do Brasil em três canções do exílio.” Lucero: A Journal of Iberian and Latin American Studies , vol. 20, 2010, pp. 34-46. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9v98t7pg#page-14. Book Chapters. (Co-authored with Cecília Rodrigues, Ana Catarina Teixeira, and Naomi Wood). “Marketing Your Program.” Portuguese Handbook . Edited by Margo Milleret and Mary Risner. Boa Vista Press, 2016, pp. 64-95. (Co-authored with Michael Gradoville). “A influência do gênero no uso de dois marcadores discursivos em elocuções formais.” Estudos sobre a língua culta falada em Fortaleza. Explorando dados do PORCUFORT . Edited by Clemilton Lopes Pinheiro, SECULT, 2010, pp. 185-214. “Jack soul brasileiro: identidade cultural e globalização na música de Lenine.” O charme dessa nação: música popular, discurso e sociedade brasileira . Edited by Nelson Barros da Costa, Expressão Gráfica, 2007, pp. 191-207. “A vertente nordestina da Geração de 1990 da Música Popular Brasileira.” Cultura lúdica, discurso e identidades na sociedade de consumo . Edited by Maria de Fátima Vasconcelos Costa and Maria da Glória Feitosa Freitas, Expressão Gráfica, 2005, pp. 301-26. “O nordeste falando para o mundo: Plurilingüismo em canções de Lenine, Chico César e Zeca Baleiro.” Práticas discursivas: exercícios analíticos . Edited by Nelson Barros da Costa, Pontes, 2005, pp. 171-84. Articles in Refereed Conference Proceedings. “O posicionamento da vertente nordestina da Música Popular Brasileira: Uma análise de metacanções.” Proceedings of the 20th Jornada Nacional de Estudos Lingüísticos . João Pessoa: Universidade Federal de Pernambuco, 2004. 203-18. “A influência do fator posição na concordância verbal no português brasileiro.” Proceedings of the 19th Jornada Nacional de Estudos Lingüísticos . Fortaleza: Universidade Federal do Ceará, 2002. 154-68. “A concordância verbal com sujeito simples e composto no português oral culto de Fortaleza.” Proceedings of the 3rd Encontro Cearense de Estudantes de Letras . Fortaleza: Universidade Estadual do Ceará, 2001. 185-98. Translations. (Co-translated with Nelson Barros da Costa). Translation from English to Portuguese of Christopher Dunn’s “Senhor cidadão e o andróide com defeito: Tom Zé e a questão da cidadania no Brasil.” O charme dessa nação: música popular, discurso e sociedade brasileira . Edited by Nelson Barros da Costa, Expressão Gráfica, 2007, pp. 163-87. Research Activity. Selected invited talks. 2019, May “The Book Industry in Claudia Piñeiro’s Betibú.” CCLAS Colloquium. Edinburgh, Scotland, United Kingdom. 2019, Apr. “Consuming Brazil: Twenty-First Century Narratives.” Lusophone Studies Keynote Presentation. 75th Kentucky Foreign Language Conference. Lexington, Kentucky. 2017, Dec. “República Federativa do Consumo: Imagens do Brasil em O Brasil é bom , de André Sant’Anna.” VIII Simpósio Internacional sobre Literatura Brasileira Contemporânea: Escritas – Leituras – Resistências. Brasília, Brazil. 2017, May “Português como língua estrangeira: O contexto acadêmico dos EUA.” Panel: Português Língua Estrangeira. Centro de Humanidades/Humanities Center, Universidade Federal do Ceará, Fortaleza, Ceará, Brazil. 2017, May “Tropicalismos na Música Popular Brasileira dos anos 1990: Lenine, Chico César e Zeca Baleiro.” Ouvindo Letras. Department of Linguistics, Universidade Federal do Ceará, Fortaleza, Ceará, Brazil. 2017, Mar. “The Academic Job Market.” 6th Annual Hispanic and Luso-Brazilian Linguistics Conference. Graduate Student Conference, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona. Selected conference presentations. 2019, Jan. “‘Golpe não!’ Brazilian Songs of Protest of the Twenty-First Century.” 2019 Modern Language Association Conference. Chicago, Illinois. 2018, Oct. “Bursting the Bubble: The Consumption of Information in Bernardo Carvalho’s Reprodução .” International Conference of the American Portuguese Studies Association. Ann Arbor, Michigan. 2018, May “Consuming Relationships in Contemporary Brazilian Fiction.” XXXVI International Congress of the Latin American Studies Association. Barcelona, Spain. 2017, Oct. “Que país é esse? Fernando Bonassi’s Consuming Brazil in Luxúria .” New Cartographies Conference, Washington University. St. Louis, Missouri. October 2017. 2017, Apr. “The Battle for Goods: Consumption and Citizenship in Anna Muylaert’s The Second Mother .” Popular Culture Association and American Culture Association Conference. San Diego, California. 2016, Oct. “Consumer Culture’s ‘Collateral Damage’ in Ana Paula Maia’s De gados e homens. ” American Portuguese Studies Association Conference. Palo Alto, California. 2016, Oct. “Desenvolvimento de um curso de nível intermediário: Relato de uma parceria através da Georgia Portuguese Program Association (GAPPA).” American Portuguese Studies Association Conference. Palo Alto, California.