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Luis Fernando Verissimo Brazil
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Born in 1936
as the son of Érico Verissimo,
he is one of the best-known literary figures in
Verissimo has given the crônica a new literary stature through his use of
techniques normally associated with the short story and novel and, particulary, through his creation of unforgettable
characters who recur in his writings: the detective Ed Mort, a paragon of
incompetence; the little old lady from Taubaté, who
allegedly was the last person in Brazil to believe in the
government; and, above all, the celebrated psychoanalyst from Bagé, a macho, outspoken, self-styled Freudian analyst,
whose unconventional methods include whipping his patients. His O analista de Bagé is the
all-time bestseller in Brazilian literary history. (I.Stern:
Dictionary of Brazilian Literature)
O clube dos anjos (“The Club of
the Angels“), a book about the sin of gluttony, was an immediate success. In
2003 it was selected by the New York Public Library as one of the 25 Best Books of the Year. Ten friends,
who are more than fond of eating, meet up once a month for an evening meal;
each month one of the ten invites all the others. Their little community,
however, undergoes a strange demise, when one of them dies. A
month later the second and then a third. The very thought of a mortal
end to the extravagant meals intensifies the pleasure,
creating an almost unbearable excitement.
Borges e os orangotangos eternos (“Borges and the eternal Orang-utans“) is an extremely entertaining
novel, which shows again Verissimo’s talent for
writing detective stories. Vogelstein, the
narrator, travels to
O opositor (“The
Opponent”) is the story told by a young journalist, who travels to
The little novel is part of the “Five Finger Prose” series. Verissimo
centres on the thumb and around this “opponent” of the remaining four fingers,
he spins an intricate and absurd plot. Of importance is not only the ominous
“Pole”, but also the strange Sect of the Awakened, whose members have their
thumbs amputated. Taking it for an instrument of the devil, they hope for salvation
after being “corrected”. One of its members is Serena, half Indian, and half
Danish. The journalist is wrapped in a frenzy of love by plant extracts and her
partly brown and partly white body. Verissimo
develops a suspenseful story, which appears playfully light and soon renders to
be a parody of Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. The narrator refers sparingly
to regional myths and thereby lends the novel its own genuinely Brazilian
touch.
A décima
segunda noite (“The Twelfth
Night”) is a book inspired by the play Twelfth Night, one of Shakespeare’s most
sparkling comedies. In the Bard’s version, Duke Orsino
falls in love with the countess Olivia, in mourning after the death of her
brother. A young woman – who has disguised herself as a man to work at the
Court – becomes the Duke’s messenger and delivers love letters to the Countess.
And thus begins a spiral of misunderstandings: Olivia falls in love with the
messenger, who is a woman, who is in turn in love with the Duke. Verissimo transforms the Shakespearean Duke into the
manager of a Parisian hairdresser’s salon, and the narrator is the parrot,
Henri. The result is a hilarious story about love: straightforward love,
passionate love, hopeless love – and parrot love.
In Luis Fernando Verissimo's short new novel Os espiões
("Spies"), life and literature come together in an exciting form. The
staid narrator, an editor in a publishing house – who started work there in the
hope of publishing his now dust-covered espionage novel – launches a secret
mission to investigate the mysterious story of Ariadne, along with his also
failed friends and colleagues. The publishing house has been sent an anonymous
manuscript of the same name. It seems to be linked to a local corruption and
crime case. Curious, the editor asks for more material, which includes a photo
of the protagonist, who may be the author herself. The attractive young woman
doesn't fail to make an impression on the frustrated married man, who has grown
apart from his wife Julinha, her beauty now swathed
in layers of fat. The would-be detectives set out to help Ariadne, ending up in
a provincial town where preparations are underway for an important soccer game.
The plan goes absolutely haywire, as the strangers in town are suspected of
wanting to bribe the soccer star Mandioca. When he
then shoots two own goals, blood really is spilled.
The novel describes what
can happen when one thinks a text and its characters are real and succumbs to
the temptation to leave the position of observer and exert an active influence
over events. Faster than imagened, one loses one's
alleged innocence or inadvertently provokes catastrophe.
Verissimo's Os espiões is an homage to the
classic crime and secret agent stories, the author paying his respects
explicitly to John LeCarré and implicitly to Poe, as
the father of the genre. But these are merely the most obvious allusions among
many, which the reader will enjoy decoding throughout the book.
That Verissimo covers all this - and more - in one slim volume
might suggest that he indulges in occult practices of his own. The other
explanation, of course, is that he’s a writer worthy of international renown.
Think Dan Brown is the craftiest crytographer in town? Nevermore.
KIRKUS REVIEW
(starred review)
The Brazilian
writer Luis Fernando Verissimo is certainly a
wonderful discovery for the German book market: Never has a thriller been so
black-humoured, so cryptic. A wonderful culinary roulette,
which the reader always wins.
BONNER
GENERAL-ANZEIGER
Verissimo’s work is
now being published by Objetiva,
Original editions (selection) and rights sold:
Novels:
O jardim do diabo, Porto Alegre: L&PM 1988; Rio de Janeiro:
Objetiva 2005, 180 p.
France: Le Mascaret ● Germany: Rowohlt 1990 (rororo thriller)
O clube dos anjos, Rio de
Janeiro: Objetiva 1998, 130 p.
France: Seuil 2001 ● Germany: Droemer 2001, Knaur pb 2002 ● Greece: Enalios 2001 ● Hungary: Eri Kiadó ● Italy: Ponte alle Grazie 2002; Salani ● Korea: Woongjin Think Big 2007 ● Mexico: UJED ● Netherlands:
Athenaeum 2011 ● Portugal: Dom Quixote 2001 ● Romania: Curtea Veche 2005 ● Russia: Ast Publishers 2005 ● Serbia + Montenegro: Narodna Knjiga 2002 ● Spain: Plaza & Janés 2001, Spanish rights
available ● UK: Harvill 2001 ● US: New Directions 2002, pb 2008
Borges e os orangotangos, São Paulo:
Companhia das Letras 2000, 133 p.
Argentina: Sudamericana 2005 (Latin America only) ● Denmark: Gyldendal 2003 ● France: Seuil 2004 ● Germany: Droemer 2003 ● Greece: Agra 2007 ● Israel: Bambook ● Italy:
Atmosphere ● Japan: Fusosha 2008 ● Korea: Woongjin Think Big 2007 ● Portugal: ASA
2002 ● Romania: Curtea Veche 2005
● Russia: Ast ● Serbia + Montenegro: Trivic ● Spain: Ézaro 2008 ● UK: Harvill 2004 ● US: New Directions 2005
O opositor, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva
2004, 140 p.
France:
Seuil 2006 ● Germany: Droemer
Knaur 2006 ● Romania: Vivaldi ● Spain: Ediciones La Campana (Catalan)
A décima segunda noite, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva 2006, 147 p.
Os espiões, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva 2009, 171 p.
Film rights under option
Netherlands: Athenaeum ● Portugal: Dom Quixote 2009 ● Romania: Vivaldi ● UK: MacLehose Press
Short prose:
Ed Mort e outras histórias, Porto Alegre: L&PM 1979, 231 p.
France: L’Ecailler du Sud 2002
Comédias da vida privada, Porto Alegre: L&PM 1994, 326 p.
Germany: Europa 1999, 2001
As mentiras que os homens contam, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva 2000, 166 p.
Italy: Ponte alle Grazie (Longanesi) 2004 ● Korea: Woongjin Think Big 2008 ● Portugal: Dom Quixote 2002 ● Spain: Ézaro 2007
Comédias para se ler na escola, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva 2001, 145 p.
Portugal: Dom Quixote 2003
A mesa voadora, Rio de
Janeiro: Objetiva 2001, 153 p.
Portugal:
Dom Quixote 2003
Sexo na cabeça, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva 2002, 148 p.
Argentina: Ediciones de la Flor ● Portugal: Dom Quixote 2004 ● Spain: Ézaro 2008
O melhor das comédias da vida privada, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva 2002, 293 p.
Portugal: Dom Quixote 2005 ● Spain: Ediciones de La Campana ( Catalan )
Orgias, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva
2005, 132 p.
Portugal: Dom Quixote 2008
O mundo é bárbaro e o que nós temos a
ver com isso, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva
2008, 164 p.
Comédias brasileiras de verão, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva
2009, 191 p.
Em algum lugar do paraíso, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva 2011, 197 p.
Participation in Anthologies:
Basura y otros relatos
Buenos
Aires: Queleer