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Fernando Pessoa’s Disappearing Act (2017)
- wenc 6y agoI'm happy to see that Lusophone authors are being (re)discovered by the New Yorker set. (another recent article [1]) The big names in Brazil are of course Machado de Assis, Jorge Amado and Clarice Lispector (very abstract). Paulo Coelho does not count. In Portugal, there's Fernando Pessoa and José Saramago. Who else would folks recommend? [1] https://www.newyorker.com/books/second-read/rediscovering-one-of-the-wittiest-books-ever-written https://www.newyorker.com/books/second-read/rediscovering-on...
- airstrike 6y agoFor lighter reading, Luis Fernando Veríssimo is a personal favorite
- DoingIsLearning 6y agoA more contemporary and critically acclaimed Portuguese author would be José Luís Peixoto, even Saramago acknowledged him as a talented writer. Of the wider Lusophone world I would also recommend Mozambique's Mia Couto.
- Ftuuky 6y ago+1 for Mia Couto and José Luís Peixoto. Other comment in this thread mentioned Luis Fernando Veríssimo, which I also recommend.
- coliveira 6y agoIn my opinion the biggest name of Brazilian literature in the 20th century is Guimarães Rosa. Unfortunately his language is very difficult to translate (it is difficult and fascinating even to Brazilians).
- personlurking 6y agoScribd has an English translation of Rosa's Grande Sertão: Veredas, titled The Devil to Pay in the Backlands. I'm fluent in Portuguese (though not a native speaker) but couldn't get through the beginning of the original.
- nathanlied 6y agoI'm a native-level (European) Portuguese speaker, and although I can get through the beginning, it is with some effort. I'd describe the style as being akin to stream of consciousness, but with a somewhat jumbled sentence structure on top. Of course, I use the term 'jumbled', but I'm sure it's intentional, and it does have a striking effect because of that.
- aflag 6y agoThere's a graphic novel of it that you may find interesting. You can probably find it in portuguese bookstores. It's available on Amazon in some countries.
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- caioariede 6y agoI'm native speaker and I'm currently reading Grande Sertão: Veredas. The beginning of the book (first 100 pages) is really hard, mostly because it use words that are not commonly used nowadays but also because some of the words are written as spoken. Some people like to read it loud because of this. I've tried myself for some paragraphs and it really made sense to me :)
- sizeofchar 6y agoI only understood some words from him after a drama group played at my school. I used to be bored by his style, but after this, I accepted he was a genius.
- pjmlp 6y agoI would recomend, - Eça de Queiroz (my favourite) - António Lobo Antunes - Miguel Sousa Tavares - José Luís Peixoto - José Rodrigues dos Santos However except for Eça, not sure how many of them might have their work translated into other languages.
- Ftuuky 6y agoJosé Rodrigo dos Santos in the same list as Eça de Queirós is offensive. Rodrigo dos Santos is the Portuguese-version of Dan Brown, not a literary giant.
- pjmlp 6y agoTo each its own. That is my list.
- nbap 6y agoFrom the comments' guidelines: "Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- campbellmorgan 6y ago+1 for Eça de Queiroz. With the exception of O Crime do Padre Amaro which can in places be a bit blunt, he tends to have a a kind admiration for his characters as he quietly makes fun of them and the decadent society around them.
- pjmlp 6y agoWhat I love about his stories is that they could be easily applied to modern Portuguese society, and would be for the most part still up to date. That unfortunately leads us to other philosophical questions, though.
- zarkov99 6y agoEça, is in my opinion, wrote the best novel available in the Portuguese language, "The Maias". I am not sure how good the English translation is, but he Portuguese original is sublime, especially if you are familiar with Portuguese society. Many of the peculiarities he wrote about are still recognizable 100 years later. To your wife's excellent list I would add Fernando Pessoa a prolific genius and also Jose Regio, who wrote, Cantigo Negro, my favorite Portuguese poem: "come this way" — some say with sweet eyes opening their arms, and certain that it would be good if I would listen when they say: "come this way"! I look at them with languidly, (my eyes filled with irony and tiredness) and I cross my arms, and I never go that way... this is my glory: to create inhumanity! to accompany no one. — for I live with the same unwillingness with which i tore my mother's womb no, I won't go that way! I only go where my own steps take me... if to what I seek to know no one can answer why do you repeat: "come this way"? I rather crawl thru muddy alleys, to whirl in the wind, like rags, to drag my bleeding feet, than to go that way... if I came to this world, it was only to deflower virgin forests, and to draw my own footsteps in the unexplored sand! all else I do is worth nothing. how can you be the ones that give me impulses, tools and courage to overcome my own obstacles? the blood of our ancestors runs thru your veins, And you love what is easy! I love the Far and the Mirage, I loves the abysses, the torrents, the deserts... go! you have roads, you have gardens, you have flower-beds, you have a nation, you have roofs, and you have rules, and treaties, and philosophers, and wise men. I have my Madness! I hold it high like a torch burning in the dark night, and I feel foam, and blood, and chants on my lips... God and the Devil guide me, no one else! everyone's had a father, everyone's had a mother; but I, who never begin or end, was born of the love between God and the Devil. ah! don't give me sympathetic intentions! don't asks me for definitions! don't tells me: "come this way"! my life is a whirlwind that broke loose, it's a wave that rose. it's one more atom that ignited... I don’t know which way I’ll go, I don't know where I'm going to, - I know I'm not going that way!
- scottlocklin 6y agoI've been reading Peregrinacao by Fernao Mendes Pinto (in English, as it was written in the 1500s); a weird sort of Portuguese Marco Polo. As my language skills improve, Aquilino Ribeiro is on my list.
- campbellmorgan 6y agoI never thought I would see this on HN! I also highly recommend reading (an abridged version of) this, maybe in tandem with a well annotated version of The Lusiads by Camoes. From our modern, connected multicultural world, I find there's nothing more engrossing than witnessing this "discovery" through the eyes of those comparatively monocultural generations. In a similar vein, I have also been meaning to read some of Ibn Battuta's travels which strike me as a Berber angle on a similar journey.
- scottlocklin 6y agoI'm saving Camoes; gonna read Gaspar Correa "The three voyages of Vasco da Gama: and his viceroyalty" with that one (it looked good, but Fernao Mentes Minto is more of its own standalone thing). Most crazy thing I've yet read from Iberia is Captain Alonso Contreras Life; obviously not in Portuguese, and not too much about exploration, but it's just insane. Ibn Battuta looks pretty cool; thanks for mentioning.
- charlysl 6y ago> Most crazy thing I've yet read from Iberia is Captain Alonso Contreras Life; obviously not in Portuguese, and not too much about exploration, but it's just insane. The most insane and extreme adventure I have ever read is Cabeza de Vaca's Naufragios. Marooned in Florida with a few companions and one slave, and then himself enslaved by native americans (he famously quipped that his poor slave became a slave's slave), they ended up being the first europeans known to walk the US coast to coast, as a chaman with his entourage. A very resourceful man. His observations of the many american tribes he came across were a first, he had an anthropologist's outlook. A short but intense book.
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- forinti 6y agoI would recommend João Ubaldo Ribeiro, Jorge Amado, Carlos Heitor Cony. If you like police stories, Patrícia Melo is really good.
- mping 6y agoI outsourced the following from my wife: - Vergílio Ferreira - Miguel Torga - Gonçalo M Tavares - Eugénio de Andrade (poetry) - Sophia de Mello Breyner (poetry)
- gtpedrosa 6y agoSome of my personal favourites in Brazil: Hilda Hilst and Manoel de Barros, mostly for poetry. In Portugal: Valter Hugo Mãe (vhm). He got a lot of exposure in Brazil recently. His books are widely available.
- ParadoxicalName 6y agoJoão Cabral de Melo Neto, Carlos Drummond de Andrade, Graciliano Ramos are some of the classics
- nbap 6y ago- José Eduardo Agualusa (My favorite) - Valter Hugo Mãe - Gonçalo M. Tavares - Raduan Nassar - Rubem Fonseca
- zarkov99 6y agoEca de Queiroz is my personal favorite. Luis de Camoes, which many compare to Shakespeare, is maybe the greatest of Portuguese poets.
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- dang 6y agoSome good comments about Pessoa have appeared on HN over the years: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=pessoa&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
- Witosso 6y agoI read the book recently. I definitely do not recommend it to anyone who has any symptoms of depression...
- infinite_beam 6y agoHumberto Costantini.