Project Description

Member of the Brazilian Academy of LettersMoacyr Scliar

(1937 – 2011)
Brazil

Moacyr Scliar was one of Latin America’s most important contemporary writers, who was repeatedly awarded the most distinguished prizes of his country and a great contribution to Brazilian society. He studied medicine and worked as a doctor in the public health service until his retirement. In 2003 he was elected member of the Brazilian Academy of Letters. His books have been published in over 20 countries.

Please also visit the author’s website: > moacyrscliar.com

Moacyr Scliar© Judith Scliar

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O exército de um homem só // O centauro no jardim // A mulher que escreveu a Bíblia

Scliar is one of the few novelists in Brazil to deal with the topic of Jewish immigrants, as in O exército de um homem só (“The One-Man Army”). He is also a master of short stories, of a fantastic and absurd kind. I’m attracted by the fluid borderline between the literary and the humorous, the real and the absurd. Medicine is another topic that runs through his oeuvre. With considerable humour the author presents the issues of alienation, of religious and ethnic belonging, of the discrepancy between individuality and group identity. He became famous with the novel O centauro no jardim (“The Centaur in the Garden”) and has maintained the interest of a wide readership until present with novels such as A mulher que escreveu a Bíblia (“The Woman who wrote the Bible”), which tells the story about an unattractive girl who becomes one of King Salomon’s wives. As she is the only literate woman, she becomes the king’s historian and tells generations to come the true story of the creation of the world and the glory of King Salomon.

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Os leopardos de Kafka

Os leopardos de Kafka (“Kafka’s leopards”) tells the story of a misunderstanding and its expansive and entertaining consequences. In 1916, in a Europe devastated by the First World War and on the threshold of the Bolshevik Revolution, the young Russian Benjamin travels to Prague on a secret mission. When he is mistakenly handed The Temple Leopards by Franz Kafka, he believes it to be a coded message. The result is a truly Kafkaesque situation.

Quotes

Os leopardos de Kafka

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O centauro no jardim

In O centauro no jardim (“The Centaur in the Garden”), Moacyr Scliar humorously links fairy-tale, myth and the banality of everyday life in a bourgeois society. Guedali is the son of Jewish immigrants in Brazil – and a centaur, half man, half horse. When he meets the female centaur Tita, the two of them decide to undergo an operation to be given full human form. But Guedali soon longs for his former appearance again…

Quotes

O centauro no jardim

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Na noite do ventre, o diamante

Na noite do ventre, o diamante (“The Hidden Diamond”): The family Nussembaum lives in a remote village in Russia. For Sabbath each week, Esther, mother of two sons, puts on a precious diamond ring in her humble little house. And what a diamond it is! It accompanies the reader throughout the centuries up to the present. First it is brought from Brazil to Amsterdam by a neo Christian persecuted by the Inquisition and then it is handed down from generation to generation. In the beginning of the 20th Century the family Nussembaum emigrates to Brazil. In order to bring the ring safely across the border, one of the sons swallows the ring, the other, Gregório, swallows the stone. The family soon regains the ring, the stone, however, has implanted itself in Gregório’s bowels. Will it ever be found again? The doyen Scliar once again combines occurrences bordering the absurd with historical facts and lets the reader take part in an entertaining game amid reality and fiction.

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Os vendilhões do templo

Os vendilhões do templo (“The Temple Hawkers”):The famous Bible scene in which Jesus furiously drives the merchants from the Temple provides Scliar with the idea for his new novel, which is set in three different eras and takes a good-humoured look into the relation between religion and commerce. The author starts off with the story of a man from 33 AD, a skilled and inventive salesman. The second story takes place in the 17th century in the south of Brazil, in one of the Jesuits’ missionary outposts. The third and final part of the novel is set in the same place, where a small town has been built on the site of the old mission. The year is 1997. The narrator is a broke, melancholy journalist. As in his previous works, the author looks back to tell the present through the past. And the questions that are repeatedly raised in the course of the novel do not apply to Brazil alone: What is the relationship between religion and commerce? How can ideals survive reality? Scliar once again seduces the reader in this funny, ironic novel as the masterful storyteller he is.

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Manual da paixão solitária

Manual da paixão solitária (“A Manual on Solitary Passion”): At a congress of biblical studies held in a Brazilian city, Harold Veiga de Assis, a famous historian and professor at a prestigious North American university, presents a paper that is based on a manuscript discovered only a few months previously in a cave in Israel that refers to a short passage in the Book of Genesis. It tells the story of patriarch Judah and how his decision to increase his clan leads to the loss of his children. Two of his sons, Er and Onan marry, one after the other, the young and beautiful Tamar, but neither of them manage to father any children. The first son, Er, is punished by God with death for his inability to procreate. Traditionally the Second son, Onan, is responsible for taking the place of his older brother. He, however, refuses to carry out this role since he considers it a humiliation and would rather spill his semen on the ground, than produce any children with her. God punishes him too, with death. Judah’s youngest son Shelah is the only one left and he does not want to him to go to Tamar for fear of losing him too. Dishonoured and deprived of children, Tamar plays a trick that goes down in history. A masterly raconteur, Veiga de Assis manages to capture the attention of the congress members, which prompts Diana Medeiros, also a historian and university professor and one of Veiga de Assis’ old students, to offer her interpretation of the biblical text, which in turn unleashes a heated debate. The antagonism that arises between the two professors gives way to a modern debate on the biblical facts being presented, which at the end of the day are really explorations into the fundamental feelings of human beings.

As in his previous novels, “The Woman who wrote the Bible” and “The Temple Hawkers”, Scliar uses a biblical theme to prompt the narration of two very different points of view. Typically amusing and though provoking, he addresses the basic emotions of every human being – love, hate, envy, jealousy – all of which have played a part in every human story throughout the ages.

Quotes

Manual da paixão solitária

RIGHTS

RIGHTS (SELECTION)

Scliar’s work is now mainly being published by Companhia das Letras, São Paulo.

NOVELS (SELECTION)
Éden-Brasil
São Paulo: Companhia das Letras 2002, 136p.

USA: Tagus Press 2019

A Guerra no Bom Fim
Rio de Janeiro: Expressão e Cultura 1972; Porto Alegre: L&PM 1982, 90 p.

France: Folies d’Encre 2010 · Germany: Hentrich & Hentrich 2013 · Romania: Univers 2012 · USA: Texas Tech University Press 2010

O Exército de um Homem Só
Rio de Janeiro: Expressão e Cultura 1973; Porto Alegre: L & PM 1980; 2002, 176 p.

Argentina: Contexto 1988 · Chile: Lom 2002 · Colombia: Tercer Mundo 1988; 1995 · France: Folies d’Encre · Germany: Weitbrecht 1987, pb Goldmann 1989, pb Suhrkamp 2000, pb Lilienfeld 2013 · Mexico: Alfaguara 2005 · Portugal: Caminho 2002 · Spain: Txalaparta 2004 · USA: Ballantine 1986

Os Deuses de Raquel
Rio de Janeiro: Expressão e Cultura 1975 ; Porto Alegre: L&PM 1983, 2001, 125 p.

France: Folies d’Encre · Germany: Hentrich & Hentrich 2013 · Romania: Univers · USA: Ballantine 1990

Os Voluntários
Porto Alegre: L&PM 1980, 203 p.

Kuwait: Alsurra (Arabic) 2017 · USA: Ballantine 1988

O Ciclo das Águas
Porto Alegre: Globo, 1975

France: Folies d’Encre

Max e os Felinos
Porto Alegre: L&PM 1981, 2001, 78 p.

Kuwait: Alsurra (Arabic) 2017 · Canada: Les Intouchables 2003 (French), Key Porter Books · China: Shanghai 99 · Colombia: Ediciones B 2006 · Denmark: Jensen  Dalgaard · France: Presses de la Renaissance 1991, Folies d’Encre 2009 · Greece: Medusa-selas · Italy: Meridiano Zero 2004 · Lithuania: Charibde 2016 · Romania: Univers 2014 · Slovenija: Modrijan 2018 · USA: Ballantine 1990, Penguin 2003, Plume 2003

A Estranha Nação de Rafael Mendes
Porto Alegre: L&PM 1983, 287 p.

France: Belfond 1986, Folies d’Encre · Germany: Weitbrecht 1989 · Spain: Circe Ediciones 1988 · Romania: Univers · USA: Crown Books 1988, Ballantine

Sonhos Tropicais
São Paulo: Companhia das Letras 1992, 212 p.

France: Belfond 1994*

O Centauro no Jardim
Porto Alegre: L & PM 1997; São Paulo: Companhia das Letras 2004, pb 2011, 247 p.

Argentina: treintayseis 2014 (Latin America) · Denmark: Jensen Dalgaard · France: Belfond 1985; Folies d’Encre 2011 · Germany: Hoffmann und Campe 1985, 2013; Volk und Welt 1988, pb Rowohlt 1989 · Israel: Maariv Book Guild 1988 · Italy: Voland 2002 · The Netherlands: Wereldbibliotheek 1994 · Portugal: Caminho 1986, 2017 · Romania: Univers 2014 · Russia: Amphora 2002* · Slovakia: Portugalsky · Spain: Swan 1985, Cículo de lectores 1986* · Sweden: Tidens 1988 · USA: Ballantine Books 1985, pb 1988, University of Wisconsin Press 2003, Texas Tech University Press 2011

A Majestade do Xingu
São Paulo: Companhia das Letras 1997, pb 2009, 210 p.

Croatia: HENA COM 2018 · France: Albin Michel 1998 · Portugal: Caminho 2000 · USA: Texas Tech University Press

A Mulher que Escreveu a Bíblia
São Paulo: Companhia das Letras 1999, pb 2007, 216 p.

Arabic: Almutawssit · Czechia: Nakladatelství Garamond · France: Albin Michel 2003, Folies d’Encre · Italy: Voland, 2004 · Mexico: Alfaguara 2001, pb 2003 · Portugal: Plátano 2009

Os Leopardos de Kafka
São Paulo: Companhia das Letras 2000, 117 p.

China: Shanghai 99 · Czech Republic: Aurora 2002 · Denmark: Hjulet 2012 · France: Folies d’Encre 2017 · Germany: Lilienfeld 2013 · Italy: Voland 2006 · Kuwait: Alsurra (Arabic) 2019 · Portugal: ASA 2002 · Romania: Univers · Spain: Rayo Verde 2012 · USA: Texas Tech University Press 2011

Na Noite do Ventre, o Diamante
Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva 2005, 167 p.

Os Vendilhões do Templo
São Paulo: Companhia das Letras 2006, 296 p.

Manual da Paixão Solitária
São Paulo: Companhia das Letras 2008, 215 p.

Eu Vos Abraço, Milhões
São Paulo: Companhia das Letras 2010, 255 p.

STORIES (SELECTION)
A Balada do Falso Messias
São Paulo: ática 1976, 85 p.

US: Ballantine Books 1987*

O Carnaval dos Animais
Porto Alegre: Movimento 1978, 74 p.

France: Belfond 1987, Serpent à Plumes 1999, Folies d’Encre 2010 · USA: Ballantine Books 1986*

O Olho Enigmático
Rio de Janeiro: Ed. Guanabara 1986, 185 p.

France: Belfond 1990* · USA: Ballantine Books 1989*

A Orelha de Van Gogh
São Paulo: Companhia das Letras 1989, 163 p.

France: Belfond 1992* · Italy: Voland 2000 · Portugal: Caminho 1994 · Sweden: Tranan 2011

Contos Reunidos
São Paulo: Companhia das Letras 1995, 437 p.

USA: University of New Mexico Press

ANTHOLOGY ABOUT JEWISH HUMOUR
Do Éden Ao Divã. Humor Judaico
Lisboa: Tinta da china 2019, 285 p.

ESSAYS (SELECTION)
Saturno nos Trópicos, a Melancolia Européia Chega ao Brasil
São Paulo: Companhia das Letras 2003, 274 p.

YOUNG READERS (SELECTION)
A Colina dos Suspiros
São Paulo: Moderna 1999, 128 p.

Colombia: Ediciones B 2008

Um Sonho no Caroço do Abacate
São Paulo:Global 1995, 75 p.

France: Orphie 2018

PARTICIPATION IN ANTHOLOGIES
Abécédaire incomplet de l’humour juif
France: Folies d’Encre 2011

* rights available