Posts featuring Eliane Brum

Weekly Dispatches from the Front Lines of World Literature

The latest in literary news from Brazil and Spain!

This week, our reporters bring you news of new publications, prizes, and book fairs in Brazil and the release of new novels in Spain examining the Franco regime. Read on to find out more!

Daniel Persia, Editor-at-Large, reporting from Brazil

Things are heating up in Brazil, as summer carries on in full force and the Sambadrome gears up for its first parade of the decade. Brazil is more than just Carnaval, though, as Eliane Brum reminds us in The Collector of Leftover Souls (Graywolf Press), translated by Diane Grosklaus Whitty and longlisted for the National Book Award. A prolific journalist and documentary filmmaker, Brum calls out the reader in the first few pages of the book: “Whenever I visit an English-speaking country, I notice Brazil doesn’t exist for most of you. Or exists only in the stereotype of Carnival and soccer. Favelas, butts, and violence.” Brum invites the reader on a journey into indigenous villages, through environmental destruction (and reconstruction), and into the heart and soul of politics in Brazil. The translation resonates in the midst of growing tensions over fires in the Amazon, met by what Brum characterizes as an unfit and “destructive” response by the Bolsonaro administration.

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Weekly Dispatches from the Frontlines of World Literature

Your latest updates from Brazil, Iran, and the UK

This week, Brazilian Editor-at-Large Maíra Mendes Galvão reports from Brazil’s vibrant literary scene. Poupeh Missaghi writes about how Iranians celebrated a revered literary figure’s birthday and gives us a peep into the preparations for the Tehran International Book Fair. And M. René Bradshaw has much to report from London’s literati! Hope you’re ready for an adventure! 

Maíra Mendes Galvão, our Editor-at-Large for Brazil, brings us the latest from literary events:

The capital of the Brazilian state of Ceará, Fortaleza, hosted the 12th Biennial Book Fair last weekend. The very extensive and diverse program included the presence of Conceição Evaristo, Ricardo Aleixo, Marina Colasanti, Joca Reiners Terron, Eliane Brum, Luiz Ruffato, Natércia Pontes, Daniel Munduruku, Frei Betto and many others. The event also paid homage to popular culture exponents such as troubadour Geraldo Amâncio, musician Bule Bule, and poet Leandro Gomes de Barros. One of the staples of Ceará is “literatura de cordel“, a literary genre (or form) that gets its name from the way the works (printed as small chapbooks) have traditionally been displayed for sale: hanging from a sort of clothesline (cordel). It was popularized by a slew of artists, including a collective of women cordel writers, Rede Mnemosine de Cordelistas, who marked their presence in a field originally dominated by men.

The northeast of Brazil is bubbling with literary activities: this week, from April 26-28, the city of Ilhéus, in the state of Bahia, hosts its own literary festival, FLIOS. There will be talks and debate about local literature and education as well as a book fair, workshops, book launches, performances, and readings.

The other upcoming literary festival is Flipoços, hosted by the city of Poços de Caldas in the south eastern state of Minas Gerais. Milton Hatoum, celebrated writer from the state of Amazonas, will be the patron of this edition of the festival, which will also pay homage to the literature of Mozambique. Guests include Rafael Gallo, Roberta Estrela D’Alva, Tati Bernardi, Ungulani Ba Ka Khosa, and others.

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