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Portugal

The covers of the six books featured in the Watchlist in a 2x3 grid: Ugliness, Honey Hunger, Adam...

The Watchlist: February 2025

By Tobias Carroll

New fiction and poetry from Hong Kong, Oman, Portugal, and more: Tobias Carroll recommends this month’s standout reads in translation.

A painting of a street scene in sixteenth-century Lisbon

Chafariz d’el Rey, c. 1570-80, Anonymous Flemish painting, in the Berardo collection, Lisbon, Portugal

A Majestic Knight Rides Past

By Joaquim Arena

Could a Black man really have become a knight of the Order of Santiago?

Translated from Portuguese by Jethro Soutar

The twelve books featured in the list, in three rows of five

12 Translators Recommend Women in Translation

By Words Without Borders

For Women in Translation Month, a dozen translators recommend recent favorite books written and translated by women.

Portrait of Lídia Jorge next to the cover of O Vento Assobiando nas Gruas

Literature, a Triumphant Art: A Conversation with Lídia Jorge

By Margara Russotto & Patrícia Martinho Ferreira

As a writer I feel like I am a creator of marginal lives, or, more appropriately, a kind of witness of time passing.

Translated from Portuguese by Tanya Pérez-Brennan

You Died on Me

By José Luís Peixoto

And I neither want nor can forget what I once felt from your gaze.

Translated from Portuguese by Robin Patterson

Honor Thy Father and Mother: In Mourning

By Susan Harris

All people mourn in their own ways.

From “the workers’ apocalypse”

By Valter Hugo Mãe

at night maria da graça dreamed that souvenirs of life on earth were on sale outside the gates of heaven.

Translated from Portuguese by Kenneth Krabbenhoft

Ernst and Mylia

By Gonçalo M. Tavares

Ernst Spengler was alone in his attic apartment, ready to throw himself out the already open window when, suddenly, the telephone rang

Translated from Portuguese by Anna Kushner

Halfway to a House

By Rosa Alice Branco

I take light from the closet drawers. The first day / of fall.

Translated from Portuguese by Alexis Levitin

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

The Woman Who Stole the Rain

By Teolinda Gersão

I smiled to myself when I saw just where I had ended up, thanks to this lack of efficiency, a lack which the manager appeared to attribute to the workings of fate or chance.

Translated from Portuguese by Margaret Jull Costa

I brought flowers . . .

By Ana Paula Tavares

I brought flowers / They're not all white, Mother

Translated from Portuguese by Richard Zenith

Petty Tyrants

By Conceição Lima

Petty tyrants / who founded kingdoms at the foot of their sorrow

Translated from Portuguese by Amanda Hopkinson

The House

By Conceição Lima

Here I wanted my house built.

Translated from Portuguese by Amanda Hopkinson

The Tale of the Sorceress

By Conceição Lima

San Malanzo was old, so old. San Malanzo was poor, so poor.

Translated from Portuguese by Amanda Hopkinson

German Dolls

By Pedro Rosa Mendes

He tried to kiss her. Maman resisted. He became furious. He called her German doll. I didn't see the rest.

Translated from Portuguese by Clifford E. Landers