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Brazil

Señor Capitán
By Edgard Telles Ribeiro
The fishing boat could hold thirty passengers out on the deck.
Translated from Portuguese by Kim M. Hastings
Multilingual
Introduction: Writing from Brazil
By Stefan Tobler
How should a writer respond to a country as full of variety and stories as Brazil?
Four Short Tales
By Antônio Prata
Employ hackers to adulterate the online versions of Hamlet.
Translated from Portuguese by Daniel Hahn
Multilingual
Natanael
By Cristhiano Aguiar
For a diver, fear brings trouble.
Translated from Portuguese by Daniel Hahn
Multilingual
Becoming Ishmael
By Antônio Moura
I part the sea in two.
Translated from Portuguese by Stefan Tobler
Multilingual
Mermaid in Earnest
By Angélica Freitas
The mermaid treads on knives when she uses her feet.
Translated from Portuguese by Hilary Kaplan
Multilingual
from “All Dogs are Blue”
By Rodrigo de Souza Leão
I’ll either leave here dead—or something worse.
Translated from Portuguese by Zoë Perry
Sixteen Degrees on Avenida Paulista
By Horácio Costa
I saw the Paraguayan go astray in the night
Translated from Portuguese by Stefan Tobler
Multilingual
from “underwater snooker”
By Carol Bensimon
Did you forget you’re supposed to slow down going downhill?
Translated from Portuguese by Anthony Doyle
Hiatus
By Armando Freitas Filho
Loyal tattoo, immune to the time of origin.
Translated from Portuguese by Stefan Tobler
Multilingual
from “O Cheiro do Ralo”
By Lourenço Mutarelli
I thought how I could spend a week just looking at her behind
Translated from Portuguese by Zoë Perry
Vigil
By Orides Fontela
Immobile Bird.
Translated from Portuguese by Stefan Tobler
Multilingual
Belle
By Rubem Fonseca
I don’t enjoy popping anybody, but it's my job.
Translated from Portuguese by Clifford E. Landers
Multilingual
The Hunchback and Botticelli’s Venus
By Rubem Fonseca
A hunchback either becomes impotent or burns in a fire of lasciviousness that never cools for a single instant, like the heat of hell.
Translated from Portuguese by Clifford E. Landers
Multilingual
God’s Obituary
By Fernando Paiva
Curiously, in recent years God became the most outspoken critic of his own work
Translated from Portuguese by Brent Alan James
Multilingual
Seizing Cervantes
By Antônio Xerxenesky
The plan involved gradually rewriting Don Quixote over the years, so that no one would notice and collective memories would forget the details. Implausible?
Translated from Portuguese by Kim M. Hastings
Mastroianni Day
By João Paulo Cuenca
The classic “Mastroianni Day” requires a three-piece suit, dark sunglasses, and, preferably, a hat.
Translated from Portuguese by Jethro Soutar
The Visitor Edward Hopper Received Two Years Before His Death
By Mario Sabino
It is like knowing you are dead every minute of your life.
Translated from Portuguese by Clifford E. Landers
Borges’s Secretary
By Lúcia Bettencourt
I can’t, nor do I want to, unmask her, because in doing so I would destroy myself.
Translated from Portuguese by Kim M. Hastings
The May Crowning
By Angela Dutra de Menezes
For five years, Berenice waited for a chance to dematerialize her cousin
Translated from Portuguese by Alison Entrekin
The Platform
By Pena Cabreira
As day dawned in the small town, old Ruschel was already at work assembling the platform, with the care of someone preparing a gallows.
Translated from Portuguese by Clifford E. Landers
A Visit from Alcibiades
By Machado de Assis
Your Excellency must excuse the tremulous handwriting and the rambling style, both of which will soon be better understood.
Translated from Portuguese by Clifford E. Landers
1808
By Laurentino Gomes
Thus began the most noteworthy period of transformation in Rio de Janeiro.
Translated from Portuguese by Alison Entrekin
Brazilian Arabesques
By Milton Hatoum
Eight years later, he returned to Beirut with pictures and stories about the Amazon region, which he passed along to his children and relatives.
Translated from Portuguese by Clifford E. Landers
Justice Unbalanced
By Machado de Assis
Such were my scruples that I voted to acquit all but two of the defendants.
Translated from Portuguese by Clifford E. Landers
From “The Eternal Son”
By Cristovão Tezza
The most brutal morning of his life started with interrupted sleep.
Translated from Portuguese by Alison Entrekin
Luís Paulo Neto
By Carlos Eduardo de Magalhães
When Elisângela threw the box out, with all the authority of a woman who wears the pants, he didn't really care.
Translated from Portuguese by Anthony Doyle
Settling Accounts
By Paula Parisot
My father abandoned my mother a few months after I was born.
Translated from Portuguese by Clifford E. Landers
The Man Who Killed the Writer
By Sérgio Rodrigues
First things first: I didn't write the book everyone thinks I wrote, the one that has been showering me with fame and riches since its publication, just over one year go.
Translated from Portuguese by Fernanda Abreu
Love Begets Love
By Millôr Fernandes
The day, along with Ismael, was dying.
Translated from Portuguese by Clifford E. Landers
Sign of These Times
By João Anzanello Carrascoza
The couple stopped in the middle of the way to rest.
Translated from Portuguese by Renato Rezende
An Interview with José Eduardo Agualusa
By Paulo Polzonoff Jr.
José Eduardo Agualusa, 46, is a growing name in world literature. Born in Huambo, Angola, Agualusa has already been embraced across the Portuguese-speaking literary world—especially in Brazil and Portugal,…
Translated from Portuguese by Paulo Polzonoff Jr. & Anderson Tepper
A Practical Guide to Levitation
By José Eduardo Agualusa
I do not like parties. The idle chat, the smoke, the fatuous talk of drunks, I find them all tiresome.
Translated from Portuguese by Daniel Hahn
Local Affairs
By Alexander Cuadros
Alexander Cuadros reports from Brazil's Festa Literária Internacional de Parati (FLIP).
Song of Seeing
By Manoel de Barros
Having lived many years in the scrub grass in the way of birds
Translated from Portuguese by Idra Novey
Devotion
By Manoel de Barros
There was a high wall between our houses.
Translated from Portuguese by Idra Novey
The Ants
By Augusta Faro
Every day the interdental brush probed into hard corners.
Translated from Portuguese by Alison Entrekin
Mandrake
By Rubem Fonseca
I was White and had fianchettoed my bishop. Berta was mounting a strong center pawn position.
Translated from Portuguese by Clifford E. Landers
From “The History of the Bones”
By Alberto Martins
I wanted to get out of there.
Translated from Portuguese by Idra Novey
Intrusive Reader in the Night
By Milton Hatoum
I am a reader and I came to settle accounts with you.
Translated from Portuguese by Idra Novey
Rimbaud in America
By Alberto Martins
Fever in the knees / gold in the belly
Translated from Portuguese by Idra Novey
From “Ashes of the Amazon”
By Milton Hatoum
I’m from where I was born. I’m from elsewhere. –João Guimarães RosaI read Mundo’s letter in a bar in the Beco das Cancelas, an alley-way where I found refuge from the hubbub of…
Translated from Portuguese by John Gledson
The Man with the Long Mustache
By Carlos Machado
I looked at my watch. I felt distressed. It's five o'clock.
Translated from Portuguese by Sarah Brush
The Flesh and the Bones
By Rubem Fonseca
We ate worms, the most expensive dish at the restaurant.
Translated from Portuguese by Clifford E. Landers