Modern Brazilian Short Stories - Translator's Introduction - Acknowledgments & Contents

Sep 21, 2026

Uploaded by Theodora

English translation of Modern Brazilian Short Stories, translated by William L. Grossman, with an introduction by the translator. The front matter includes acknowledgments to collaborators and production notes for the translated stories, followed by a detailed contents list of the included short works and authors. The translator’s introduction discusses the Brazilian modernist movement from 1922 to 1945, its aim to express a genuinely Brazilian idiom and subject matter, and how nationalism functions as a complex, regional, and literary lens across the collection.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryStory & Novel

FormatPDF

Pages177

Reading Time4 h 33 min

AccessFree to download

Translator's Introduction

Acknowledgments

Contents

MODERN BRAZILIANSHORT STORIES TRANSLATED BYWILLIAM L.GROSSMAN UC PRESS VOICES REVIVED MODERN BRAZILIAN SHORT STORIES MODERNBRAZILIANSHORT STORIES Translated with an Introduction byWILLIAM L.GROSSMAN ** * The English translation of"The Crime of the Mathemat-ics Professor”and“Guidance”originally appeared in the De-cember 1961 issue of OdysseyReview,Copyright 1961 bythe Latin American andEuropean Literary Society,Incorporated.Grateful ac-knowledgment is made toPenguin Books,Ltd.,for per-mission to publish an Englishtranslation of VasconcelosMaia's“Sol.” University of California PressBerkeley and Los Angeles,CaliforniaCambridge University PressLondon,England Copyright C1967 by The Regents of the University of California Published with the assistance of a grantfrom the Rockefeller Foundation Library of Congress Catalog Card Number:67-13379Printed in the United States of America # Acknowledgments I owe an immense debt to Dora Vasconcellos and to LeoPeracchi,each of whom expertly and painstakingly helped meto understand the precise meaning of the text of certain of thestories. The English version of“The Crime of the MathematicsProfessor”was produced jointly by José Roberto Vasconcellosand myself. In connection with the introduction,I am grateful to WilsonMartins for observations based on his profound knowledge andunderstanding of modern Brazilian literature. W.L.G. Contents TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION1THE IMMUNIZER by R.Magalhaes Júnior6IT CAN HURT PLENTY by Mário de Andrade12METONYMY,OR THE HUSBAND'S REVENGE27by Rachel de Queiroz THE BEAUTIFUL RABBITS by Marques Rebêlo33THE THIEF by Graciliano Ramos41THE ENCHANTED OX by Luís Jardim53GAETANINHO by Antônio de Alcantara Machado71THE PIANO by Aníbal Machado75THE BAHIAN by Ribeiro Couto93GUIDANCE by Dinah Silveira de Queiroz100MY FATHER'S HAT by Aurélio Buarque de Holanda107THE HAPPIEST COUPLE IN THE WORLD117by Marília São Paulo Penna e CostaTHE THIRD BANK OF THE RIVER125by Joao Guimarães Rosa WITH GOD'S BLESSING,MOM131by José Carlos Cavalcanti Borges AT THE SIDE OF THE ROAD by Darcy Azambuja138THE CRIME OF THE MATHEMATICS PROFESSOR 146by Clarice LispectorSUN by Vasconcelos Maia153 # Translator's Introduction The modernist movement,which dominated Brazilian iteraturefrom 1922 to 1945,intensified the effort or tendency of writersto become genuinely Brazilian in idiom,in spirit,and in subjectmatter.Earlier writers in general were charged with having com-posed academic or Lusitanian Portuguese rather than BrazilianPortuguese and,what was worse,with having been indifferent tothe national reality.“If our customs and our landscapes werecaptured,"says the fictionist Renard Perez,"our essence wasnot.The Brazilian soul remained unexplored."1 The modernists,then,sought to write authentically as Bra-zilians about Brazil.In the short story,according to Perez,theprincipal exponents of this tendency were Mario de Andrade,Antônio de Alcantara Machado,and Ribeiro Couto.All threeare represented in the present collection.Indeed,almost all theauthors of these stories—all,one might say,except ClariceLispector—manifest in varying degree the nationalistic tendencyof modernism.This is true even of Guimaraes Rosa,the giant ofpost-modernist Brazilian fiction. But,in Brazilian literature as in Brazilian political sentiment,nationalism is an elusive concept.Brazil is a vast and variednation,and minha terra—my homeland,my native land—maymean one's own region rather than the entire country.Mário deAndrade and Alcântara Machado wrote about people in SãoPaulo;Darcy Azambuja writes about the far south;MarquesRebelo writes about cariocas,especially in suburban Rio;Magal-haes Júnior's story(among others)in this anthology takes placein the northeast,an especially fruitful setting of great fiction.Allthese authors,of course,are writing about Brazil.But is it the

FAQs

Who translated Modern Brazilian Short Stories and provided the introduction?

William L. Grossman translated the stories and wrote the introduction.

What time period does the introduction associate with Brazilian modernism?

The introduction describes a modernist movement dominating Brazilian literature from 1922 to 1945.

What is the central purpose of the modernist effort mentioned in the introduction?

The modernists aimed to write authentically as Brazilians in idiom, spirit, and subject matter.

Sep 21, 2026

Uploaded by Theodora