Tuesday, November 18, 2008

António Lobo Antunes: What can I do when everything's on fire?

Jaime Manrique reviews António Lobo Antunes' What can I do when everything's on fire?
From the beginning of his long, distinguished career, António Lobo Antunes has been a pitiless chronicler of Portugal's colonialism in Brazil and in Africa, the repercussions of which are felt to this day. Lobo Antunes served as a military doctor in the Angolan war of independence from Portugal (1961-75), which generated genocidal acts on both sides, and has emerged as the unquestionable historical conscience of the liberation wars fought by the Portuguese colonies in the 1960s. Haunted by Portugal's imperialist past and decades of repression at home, Lobo Antunes's characters are a cast of disaffected, predominantly marginal people whose souls have been corroded by the legacy of their nation's brutal history (another one of his major subjects is the 36-year right-wing dictatorship of António de Oliveira Salazar, which ended in 1968). His latest novel, "What Can I Do When Everything's on Fire?," translated into English with a pitch-perfect ear for colloquial speech by the legendary Gregory Rabassa, is another dissection of Portugal's sick soul.
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Carlos Fuentes' Autobiography

According to milenio.com Mexican writer Carlos Fuentes is writing his autobiography.
El escritor mexicano Carlos Fuentes anunció hoy que ya trabaja, de manera adelantada, en la preparación de un libro autobiográfico, el cual vendrá a ser "la culminación de mi vida".

Fuentes aseguró que su texto se llamará "Los días de mi vida" y que le llevará tiempo terminarlo, por tratarse de "un género complicado".



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Jose Saramago: A Viagem do Elefante


José Saramago as just published his new novel "A Viagem do Elefante"
(The Elephant's Journey).

Saramago built this new novel from an historical fact the story of
Salomon an elephant that crossed half Europe in the XVI th century as
a gift from John III, King of Portugal to Archduke Maximilian II of
Austria.
I'm personally very curious about this new experience in an historical
novel 26 years after "Baltasar and Blimunda".



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