Plays – Literarische Agentur https://mertinwitt-litag.de MertinWitt Wed, 10 Jun 2026 16:04:28 +0000 en-GB hourly 1 Alejandro G. Roemmers https://mertinwitt-litag.de/portfolio-items/alejandro-g-roemmers/ Fri, 29 Aug 2025 07:00:25 +0000 https://mertinwitt-litag.de/?post_type=avada_portfolio&p=22230

Alejandro G. Roemmers

Argentina

Alejandro Guillermo Roemmers was born in Buenos Aires in 1958. He is a poet, author, and playwright. His published novels include Living Is Inscribed In The Present (“Vivir se inscribe en presente”), Dying Only As Much As Necessary (“Morir lo necesario”), and The Mystery of the Last Stradivarius (“El misterio del último Stradivarius”). He wrote the musicals Franciscus, A Reason To Live (“Franciscus, una razón para vivir”) and Return to Patagonia (“Regreso en Patagonia”) and has published numerous collections of poetry. He has received international recognition for his various philanthropic projects, including the St. Francis of Assisi Award from the Pontifical Antonianum University in the Vatican, given to a layman for the first time in 800 years. In 2025, he was appointed Ambassador for Peace at the World Organization for Peace (WOFP). Roemmers combines his position as a businessman with a deep artistic and literary vocation and the transmission of essential human values. In this vein, he published The Return of the Young Prince and The Young Prince Points the Way, books that have been translated into 30 languages and have sold more than three million copies.

Alex Robledo© Alex Robledo

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The Mystery of the Last Stradivarius

The story begins with the tragic murder of a father and his daughter in a small town in modern-day Paraguay, a case assigned to two local policemen. It alternates with flashbacks that take us to the origins of the unmatched instrument, signed by the luthier Antonio Stradivari in 1737. From then on we see it pass from hand to hand across Europe until it falls into the grasp of a Nazi official who ends his days in Latin America. Each time and place is recreated with just the right blend of information and emotion, intimacy and atmosphere, historical figures interacting with fictional characters, all caught up in the centuries-long intrigue of which the instrument is the axis. The Mystery of the Last Stradivarius (“El misterio del último Stradivarius”) invites readers to embark on an exciting journey between the inherent laws of the detective genre and following a historical thread through the depths of the souls of those who have owned the instrument. The violin also functions as an amulet, a powerful object believed to protect its possessor from all harm. The sublime music it produces puts its listeners in direct contact with a supernatural dimension, highlighting the transcendence of art.

Quotes

The Mystery of the Last Stradivarius

RIGHTS

NOVELS

The Mystery of the Last Stradivarius (“El misterio del último Stradivarius”)
Barcelona, Buenos Aires, Santiago de Chile, Montevideo, Lima, Bogotá and Mexico City: Editorial Planeta 2025, 368 p.
Complete English translation by Simon Bruni
French translation by Albert Bensousson available
Prologue by Mario Vargas Llosa
The first print run in Spain was 15,000 copies, in Latin America 25,000 in total.
Brazil: Vestigio (Grupo Autêntica) · France: Métailié 2026, with a first print run of 20,000 copies · Italy: Corbaccio (Mauri Spagnol Group)

For further information, please visit the author’s website.

]]> Sergio Bizzio https://mertinwitt-litag.de/portfolio-items/sergio-bizzio/ Fri, 09 Oct 2020 10:49:45 +0000 https://mertinwitt-litag.de/?post_type=avada_portfolio&p=14471

RabiaSergio Bizzio

Argentina

Sergio Bizzio, born in Buenos Aires in 1956, is a narrator, poet, dramatist, scriptwriter and screenwriter. Author of a large oeuvre and considered ahead of his time, he has often been hailed as one of Argentina’s best contemporary writers. The films based on his books have all won the most prestigious awards at the New York, Cannes and Tokyo festivals. Bizzio won the Municipal Prize 2008-2009 for his novel AIWA and the National Prize 2022 in the category Short Stories/Tales for his work THE CONQUEST, IRIS AND CONSTRUCTION, presented by the Argentinean Ministry of Culture. In September 2023, he was on the cover of Babelia (El País). Sergio Bizzio was awarded the Konex Merit Diploma for his influence on future generations in Argentina in 2024.

Sergio Bizzio© Julia Gutiérrez

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We Know What Happens at Night, Snail

Bizzio immerses us in a fascinating literary experiment with an international fashion magazine, which he turns into the raw material for a reinvention of language, and using the cut-up. We Know What Happens at Night, Snail (»Sabemos lo que pasa por las noches, caracol«) is the result of a work that defies all kinds of conventions left and right. As well as a play with words, the work is a singular reflection on the nature of language, of meaning and its capacity to evoke emotions and sensations (in this case extremely strange ones). In short, „almost everything in these pages“ invites us to enter a unique universe, made of both conscious choices and chance, where creativity and imagination – both Bizzio‘s and the reader‘s – are the exclusive protagonists.

Quotes

We Know What Happens at Night, Snail

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A Beautiful Place

In A Beautiful Place (“Un lugar precioso”), two novellas (about the holiday of a couple who meet an unexpected acquaintance on the beach, and the unusual small-town nature of Martian abductions) are connected by the paranoid idea that approach and invasion function as synonyms. A beautiful place designates both the familiar space of the beach house and that of a parallel, simultaneous universe accessed by crossing the crystalline membrane of a bubble. But what strategy, however complex, can be employed to cope successfully with the surprises of fate, which test us in the uncomfortable presence of a person or the disturbing familiarity with a being from another planet? In Bizzio’s irreverent literature, the phenomenal pleasure of the written sentence can be followed by a crackle of splintered nerves, and the idyll by a hell of interstellar bureaucracy.

Quotes

A Beautiful Place

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Bongo Fury

Mirages detach themselves from reality like the mercurial vapor of distance on a road. Ethereal. It is there and yet unreachable. When we think we have mastered it, what we believe to be real folds in on itself, or unfolds like a magician’s handkerchief.
Sergio Bizzio pulls back the curtain. Everything seems to be as it is. And yet… knock on the glass and some peculiar members of the human species reach extraordinary speeds; a doll comes to life and dies, or someone has to struggle with the power to make all their wishes come true…
In Bongo Fury, Bizzio reveals the richness of his art. Time accelerates exponentially; voices become inaudible; geographies shift and bodies twist in unusual acrobatics. Each story opens up to the unknown dimension of the times we live in.

Quotes

Bongo Fury

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The Lost

Beyond the well-known stories of Juan Díaz de Solís, Pizarro, Magellan and Columbus, there are many others that were forgotten and lost; some distorted and falsified, and others, perhaps, that never had the chance to be told. Bizzio takes advantage of the gaps in history to give free rein to his imagination in a short, intense piece about the clash of civilisations.

The Lost (“Perdidos”) is a fast-paced novella, told in the first person through the diary or logbook entries of an explorer of the new world. A surprising and dynamic read with powerful and well-constructed episodes that weave together a succession of encounters and misfortunes, adventures with the indigenous people and nature in a jungle as dangerous as it is beautiful: the Amazon. Showing the fragility, helplessness, fear and sense of humour of these men who, despite their role in history (in today’s eyes destructive and criminal), were still fathers and sons with families on the other side of the ocean to whom they hoped to return.

Quotes

The Lost

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Three Martians

-What are you doing disguised like that? Aren’t you warm?
-I’m not disguised, I’m from another planet.

Three Martians (“Tres marcianos”) are three brilliant tales with protagonists who come from the countryside, the city or other planets.

A gaucho assures his courtesan that there is a flying saucer parked on the top of a mountain and that, that very night, they are invited to meet its crew.

A being that can only be visited by appointment has shaken the life of the whole village; the neighbours are unable to comprehend what happens during these encounters.

After a space journey of more than two years, a couple meets again, but the embrace becomes unsettling: the other seems to be not exactly the same person they left behind.

Three close encounters of the first kind in the best Bizzio style: captivating from the first line, visual throughout and leaving the impression – or the doubt – that they really happened.

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Ten Days in Re

After their wedding party, Carlos and Irina go on a honeymoon: Ten Days in Re (“Diez días en Re”). She is happy; he is still a little drunk. They take a plane, get on a barge, and after many hours travelling they arrive at the beaches of Re. The landscape is perfect. And while looking at Irina smiling from the shore, a devastating certainty falls over Carlos: he does not love her. This thought stuns him in such a way that his arm is left stiff for days and he can’t move it. Carlos wanders like a soul in pain trying to make sense of his existence and thinking about how to proceed.

From what is initially perceived as a story of a separation, something else soon arises. The story mutates and twists, and drags us through the sand of its tropical paradise into the deepest bewilderment. On the scenography of a honeymoon, Bizzio sets a series of elements that stretch the limits of reality. Page by page the story becomes a new one, becoming thick and magnetized like the jungle that surrounds the characters. Once again Bizzio unfolds his sharply delicate prose, immersing us once more, with a disturbing naturalness, in a universe full of strangeness.

Quotes

Ten Days in Re

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My Life in Huel

At the age of twelve, Irina lost her mother in a road accident. The next day she was sent to live with her father in Huel, a tiny village in the middle of the plains. For years she had not heard from him. She could only remember him as an office worker with an orderly life. Now he was a savage who looks after his physique: he eats raw eggs for breakfast, breaking them directly into his mouth, dressed in a sack and tie.

Life in Huel is monotonous and idle, until her father’s ex-wife returns with the intention of taking their house from them. They begin to build a new one nearby, but day after day they find the foundations destroyed. From then on, the plausible begins to get strange and twisted.

In My Life in Huel (“Mi vida en Huel”) Sergio Bizzio explores with delicate precision the social, aesthetic and amorous fantasies of an out-of-the-ordinary teenager in a world where the borders of the possible become increasingly diffuse. His mastery of the construction of atmosphere keeps us floating, flying over the land of an unusual and disturbing village.

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Borgestein // The Eaten Writer // Aiwa

Borgestein tells the apparently everyday story of a marriage crisis. Julia is an actress who only ever thinks of her career. When her husband is attacked by one of his patients he withdraws to a house in the mountains to think about his own life and their life together. With typical absurd narrative moments and unexpected twists and turns, the author has created a jewel of current Argentine writing.

As a star author grows tired of his success, he uses a plane crash to stage his death and starts a new life in the jungle. In his latest novel The Eaten Writer (“El escritor comido”), Bizzio takes the reader on an unusual and imaginative adventure while posing elementary questions on mankind today.

Written with the quiet humour and the fresh and concise style that characterise Bizzio’s books, Aiwa tells a tender and unusual love story in a world both bizarre and ordinary. When the teenagers Aiwa and Sony meet, it is love at first sight, but they have to hide their relationship. However, there are mysterious changes going on in Aiwa’s remote village, and soon a group of scientists disturbs their quiet life. What will they find?

Quotes

Borgestein // The Eaten Writer // Aiwa

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Reality

In Bizzio’s novel Reality (“Realidad”), an Arabic terrorist commando hijacks an Argentine television channel in order to put pressure on the government to hand over a traitor. The Afghan head of the intruders is fascinated by the dynamics of the broadcasted reality show Big Brother and decides to use it to dismantle Western values. Indeed, the candidates accept any form of humiliation in order to become famous. As the hijackers are finally overwhelmed by the police, the fictional existence of the contestants ends and they return to real life – or is it the other way round?

Quotes

Reality

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It Was the Sky

It Was the Sky (“Era el cielo”) tells the story of a faltering relationship. Only a few days after making up with her, a man watches his wife being raped. He remains undiscovered and the two of them never utter a word on the matter. Caught up in the resulting dynamics, the protagonist sleepwalks towards the edge of a psychological abyss, only saved by his love for his son.

Quotes

It Was the Sky

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Rage

Rage (“Rabia”) is a fast-paced love story revealing the lives of the lower classes with psychological empathy and a good dose of black humour. After a heated argument with his foreman, the construction worker José María ends up strangling him and flees to the palatial villa where his girlfriend Rosa works as a maid. Hiding out in one of the attics, he watches the family. Then Rosa is raped…

Quotes

Rage

RIGHTS

NOVELS

A Beautiful Place (“Un lugar precioso”)
Buenos Aires: Literatura Random House (PRH), 2024, 249 p.

We Know What Happens at Night, Snail (“Sabemos lo que pasa por las noches, caracol”)
Buenos Aires: InterZona 2024, 128 p.

The Lost (“Perdidos”)
Buenos Aires: InterZona 2021, 133 p.

Ten Days in Re (”Diez días en Re“)
Buenos Aires: Literatura Random House (PRH) 2017, 122 p.
Israel: Tesha Neshamot 2017

My Life in Huel (”Mi vida en Huel“)
Buenos Aires: Literatura Random House (PRH) 2016, 165 p.
Israel: Tesha Neshamot

Borgestein
Buenos Aires: Literatura Mondadori, (PRH) 2012, 191 p.
France: Bourgois 2014 · Israel: Zikit 2014 · Italy: La Linea 2014

The Eaten Writer (“El escritor comido”)
Buenos Aires: Mansalva 2010, 222 p., Interzona (worldwide excl. Chile and Spain)
Chile: Libros de Laurel 2021 (only in Chile) · Spain: Blatt & Ríos (only in Spain) 2021 · Uruguay: Criatura 2012

Aiwa
Buenos Aires: Mansalva 2009, 144 p.; Caballo Negro
(Adaptation with Pablo Tunica as Graphic Novel planned, sample available)

Reality (”Realidad“)
Buenos Aires: Literatura Mondadori (PRH) 2008, 224 p.
Film rights under option
Bulgaria: ERA · France: Bourgois 2014 · Italy: Edizioni E/0 2009 · Spain: Caballo de Troya 2009

It Was the Sky (”Era el cielo“)
Buenos Aires: Interzona 2007, 2011, 2017 189 p. (worldwide excl. Chile)
Film directed by Marco Dutra, released in 2016 under the title “The Silence of the Sky”
Film rights sold to RT Features
Brazil: Iluminuras 2022 · Israel: Neshamot 2018 · Spain: Caballo de Troya 2009

El día feliz de Charlie Feiling
Rosario: Editorial Beatriz Viterbo 2006, 128 p.
(with Daniel Guebel as co-author)

Rage (”Rabia“)
Buenos Aires: Interzona 2004, 2011, 2023, 2024 (worldwide excl. Chile and Uruguay), 189 p.
Buenos Aires/Barcelona: Mondadori 2005
Theatre adaptation by Claudio Tolcachir, world premiere at La Abadía Theatre Madrid, September 2023
Film directed by Sebastián Cordero, produced by Guillermo del Toro 2009, released in Latin America, France and New York World Premiere at TIFF 2009
Screened at San Sebastián Film Festival 2009
Premio Internacional de la Diversidad
Special Jury Award at Tokyo International Film Festival 2009
Bangladesh: Swapno · Brazil: Record 2008 · Chile: Libros del Laurel 2018 · China: The Writer’s Publishing House (Mainland China, excl. Hong Kong and Macau) · France: Bourgois 2008 · Germany: DVA 2010 · Greece: Carnívora · Israel: Simtaot 2012 · Italy: Donzelli 2009 · Kuwait: Alsurra 2019 · Portugal: Almedina 2022  · Spain: El Cobre 2004; Mondadori 2005; Nuevas Ediciones 2008 · The Netherlands: Meulenhoff 2010 · UK (world rights): Bitter Lemon Press 2009 · Uruguay: Criatura 2015

At that Time (”En esa época“)
Buenos Aires: Emecé 2001, Mansalva 2019, InterZona 2025, 160 p. (worldwide, excluding Chile and Spain)
Premio Emecé de Novela
Chile: Libros de Laurel (only in Chile) · Spain: Blatt & Ríos (only in Spain) 2022

Planet
Buenos Aires: Sudamericana 1999, Interzona 2015, 208 p.

Más allá del bien y lentamente
Buenos Aires: Sudamericana 1997, 214 p.

Son del África
Mexico City and Buenos Aires: Fondo de Cultura Económica 1993, 149 p.

Infierno Albino
Buenos Aires: Sudamericana 1992, 169 p.

El divino convertible
Buenos Aires: Catálogos Editora 1990, 239 p.

STORIES
Collected Stories (“Relatos reunidos”)
Buenos Aires: InterZona 2026, 384 p.

Bongo Fury
Buenos Aires: Penguin Random House 2022, 160 p.

Three Martians (“Tres marcianos”)
Buenos Aires: InterZona 2020, 74 p.

The Pyramid (”La Pirámide“)
Buenos Aires: Blatt & Ríos 2019, 61 p.
Chile: Libros del Laurel 2019

The Conquest, Iris and Construction (“La conquista, Iris y Construcción”)
Buenos Aires: Literatura Random House (PRH) 2019, 128 p.
National Prize 2022 in the category Short Stories/Tales

Two Spatial Fantasies (”Dos fantasías espaciales“)
(Estancia, Viaje al único)
Buenos Aires: Mansalva 2015, 125 p.

En el bosque del sonambulismo sexual
Buenos Aires: Mansalva 2013, 92 p.

A Lifelong Love (”Un amor para toda la vida“)
Buenos Aires: Mansalva 2011, 61 p.
Film directed by Paula Hernández, 2011
Chile: Libros del Laurel 2018 · Egypt: Dar Khan

Martín Fierro
Madrid: 451 Editores 2008

Boys (”Chicos“)
Buenos Aires: Interzona 2004, 2012, 2026, 176 p.
China: The Writer’s Publishing House (Mainland China, excl. Hong Kong and Macau)

Cynicism (”Cinismo“) (published in “Chicos”)
Adapted into the film “XXY”, directed by Lucía Puenzo, produced by Luis Puenzo and Wanda Vision. Five awards in Cannes 2007; winner of the Goya Award
Brazil: Iluminuras 2010 (anthology Os outros) · France: Magellan 2010

PARTICIPATION IN ANTHOLOGIES
La Argentina como narración
Buenos Aires: Fondo Nacional de las Artes (FNA)

ESSAY
El genio argentino
Buenos Aires: Eloísa Cartonera 2004,15 p.

OTHERS
We Know What Happens at Night, Snail (“Sabemos lo que pasa por las noches, caracol“)
Buenos Aires: InterZona (worldwide, excluding Chile)

POETRY
Te desafío a correr como un idiota por el jardín
Buenos Aires: Mansalva 2008 64 p.

El abanico matamoscas, Belleza y Felicidad 2000

Mínimo Figurado, Edición Último Reino 1988, 41 p.; Tierra Baldía 1990

Gran salón con piano, Ediciones Salido, 1985, 62 p.

THEATRE
Gravedad, 2003
Buenos Aires: Beatriz Viterbo 1996, 84 p.
Interzona: 2016
Film rights sold, directed by Fernando Spinner

La china (with Daniel Guebel as co-author), 1996, 2009
Argentina: Interzona

El hospital de los podridos y otras maravillas (version of Cervantes’ “Entremeses”), 1994

El Amor, 1996

Un Fausto criollo (version of Estanislao del Campo’s “Fausto”), 1993

FILMOGRAPHY

SCREENPLAYS
Adiós querida luna (based on the theatre piece Gravedad), 2005

El regreso de Peter Cascada, 2005

Chicos Ricos, 1999

DIRECTION
100 tragedias (together with Mariano Galperín) 2008

Rey Queen (documentary), 2006

El disfraz, 2003

Animalada, 2001

No fumar es un vicio como cualquier otro, 2010

]]> Augusto Boal https://mertinwitt-litag.de/portfolio-items/augusto-boal/ Fri, 09 Oct 2020 12:08:36 +0000 https://mertinwitt-litag.de/?post_type=avada_portfolio&p=14491

Theatre of the OppressedAugusto Boal

(1931 – 2009)
Brazil

Augusto Boal was born in Rio de Janeiro in 1931. He studied drama and chemistry at Colombia University and between 1950 and 1960 developed a new form of acting, O Teatro do Oprimido (“Theatre of the Opresssed”), which soon became famous all over Latin America and later in Europe. He also created a series of new acting techniques, which are explained in Jogos Para Atores e Não-Atores (“Games For Actors and Non-Actors”). O Arco-íris do Desejo (“The Rainbow of Desire”) summarises both the theory and the exercises and has become a standard work in theatre pedagogics worldwide. The author received innumerable prizes for both his plays and his textbooks, including the Pablo-Picasso-Medal from UNESCO for his work in 1994, and he was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2008. Augusto Boal is internationally considered the most important contemporary drama educator.

Augusto Boal© Fabian Boal

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Theatre of the Oppressed

Boal’s most important work, Theatre of the Oppressed (“O Teatro do Oprimido“), explains the basic idea of this new form of politically and socially motivated acting techniques. Above all, Boal wanted to contribute to diminishing injustice and defend Human Rights. Together with the Forum Theatre system, the Theatre of the Opressed is trying to initiate a democratic process, “using the stage to empower the disempowered”. Acting groups and initiatives worldwide work on the basis of Boal’s methods.

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Jogos Para Atores e Não-Atores

Jogos Para Atores e Não-Atores is a collection of Boal’s most important exercises and games, in which the participants consciously recreate and confront problems such as sexual harrassment, homophobia or racism. After a short introduction to his theory, illustrated with stories and examples of his work with different groups in Europe, Boal describes the exercises he has found most useful, dividing them into body monologues, body dialogues, techniques from Image Theatre and rehearsal techniques. These “gamesercises” can be used by both professional and amateur actors, by teachers and therapists, in political, pedagogical or social areas. Their main aim is to convert the spectator into a spect“actor”, contributing ideas and converting roles. While dealing with problematic topics, it is of great importance to Boal that acting should always be fun, leaving out any negative notions like competition, envy or rivalry.

This classic has already been translated into numerous languages and updated several times, now including over 400 exercises. The latest edition comprises Boal’s experiences with the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1997 for the creation of various characters from Hamlet.

Quotes

Jogos Para Atores e Não-Atores

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O Arco-íris do Desejo

O Arco-íris do Desejo is a handbook of exercises split into a theoretical part explaining the basics of Boal’s understanding of theatre, and a practical part presenting some of his newer acting techniques. Starting again from the principle that by acting we can free ourselves from external oppressions we have internalised, Boal’s aim is to reduce inner restraints and inhibitions and to alert a consciousness for the actor’s surroundings and his own person, which might ultimately lead him to change his life. In the exercise The Rainbow of Desire, for instance, a participant is asked to improvise a conflict from his daily life, represented by five different emotions and desires to be expressed with his body. Subsequently, the other participants assume his poses, while the improvisor steps back to see how others perceive him. He then has the chance to reflect on his behaviour and his reactions to others and possibly even change his demeanour. Other exercises are: The Cops in the Head and Their Anti-bodies, The Screen Image and The Image of the Future We Are Afraid Of. O Arco-íris do Desejo is one of the standard works of therapeutic theatre worldwide.

More information on Boal’s acting methods can be found on the homepage of the International Theatre of the Opressed Organisation:

> theatreoftheoppressed.org

> institutoaugustoboal.org

Quotes

About Augusto Boal

RIGHTS

SELECTION

BOOKS ON ACTING TECHNIQUES
A estética do oprimido, Rio de Janeiro: Garamond 2009; 254 p.; São Paulo: Editora 34, forthcoming
Argentina: Interzona 2016 · Italy: La Meridiana · Spain: Alba Editorial 2012 · UK: Routledge 2006

O teatro como arte marcial, Rio de Janeiro: Editora Garamond 2003, 2011, 204 p.
Denmark: Drama 2004

Jogos para atores e não-atores, Rio de Janeiro: Civilização Brasileira 1998;
São Paulo: Cosac Naify 2015, 408 p.; Editora 34, forthcoming
Argentina: Interzona · China: Beijing Normal University Press · Germany: Suhrkamp 1989, 2013, 2018 · France: Éditions François Maspero 1978; La Découverte 1997 · Greece: Sofia Publications 2014  · Myanmar: Thaike Soe Aung · Norway: (publishing house unknown) 1992 · Poland: Cyklady/Drama Way 2014 · Spain: Ediciones de Crisis 1975; Alba 2004 · Taiwan: Bookman Books 2020 · Thailand: Suan · Turkey: BoĝaziçiUniversity Press, 2003; Yayincilik (Anthology with: Teatro do oprimido…”) · Ukraine: Theatre for Dialogue · UK: Routledge 1992

Teatro legislativo, Rio de Janeiro: Civilização Brasileira 1996, 150 p.
Lithuania: House of Art and Education 2014 · UK: Routledge 1998

O arco-íris do desejo: método Boal de teatro e terapia, Rio de Janeiro: Civilização Brasileira 1990, 220 p.
Argentina: InterZona 2022 · China: Beijing Normal University Press 2019 · Denmark: Drama 1995 · France: Éditions Ramsay 1990; La Découverte 2002 · Germany: Suhrkamp; Kallmeyer 1999; Schibri-Verlag 2006 · Lithuania: House of Art and Education · Norway: (publishing house unknown) 1995 · Spain: Alba Editorial 2004, 2015, 2023 · Turkey: Habitus Kitap · Ukraine: Foundation for Tolerance International · UK: Routledge 1995

Teatro do oprimido e outras poéticas políticas, Rio de Janeiro: Civilização Brasileira 1975, São Paulo Cosac Naify 2013, 224 p., Editora34 2019, 229 p., MASP (schoolbook, bilingual: Portuguese and English, 3-4 p.)
China: Beijing Normal University Press · France: La Découverte 1985 (4th edition) · Germany: Suhrkamp 1979 (actually in its 12th edition), Schauble 1982 · Indonesia: Kelola Foundation · Italy: La Meridiana 2011 · Japan: Shobun-sha 1984 · Kyrgyzstan: Foundation for Tolerance · Lithuania: House of Art and Education · Mexico: Teatro sin paredes · Norway: (publishing house unknown) 2001 · Poland: PWN · Romania: Nemira · Spain: Ediciones De La Flor 1974, Alba Editorial 2009, 2023 · Sweden: Trinambai · Thailand: Suan Nguen 2019 · Turkey: Boĝaziçi University Press 2003, 2014 · UK: Pluto Press 1979, 2008 · USA: Theatre Communications Group 1985, 2011 · Vietnam: Alpha Books 2017

Técnicas Latino-Americanas de teatro popular: uma revolução copernicana ao contrário
São Paulo: Hucitec, 1975, 175 p.
Argentina: Ediciones Cepe 1972, Corregidor 1975, 2014 · Spain: Arte Acción

PLAYS
Teatro reunido, São Paulo: Editora 34, forthcoming

Teatro de Augusto Boal Vol. I: Revolução na América do Sul ; As aventuras do Tio Patinhas ; Murro em Ponta de Faca, São Paulo: Hucitec 1986, 261 p.

Teatro de Augusto Boal Vol. II: Histórias de nuestra América ; A lua pequena e a caminhada perigosa ; Torquemada, São Paulo: Editora Hucitec 1990, 152 p.

Teatro de Augusto Boal: Colecção de peças de teatro, São Paulo: Cosac Naify (forthcoming)

Hamlet e o filho do padeiro, Rio de Janeiro: Record 2000; São Paulo: Cosac Naify 2014, 350 p.
Austria: Mandelbaum 2013 · UK: Routledge 2001; Taylor & Francis, Inc. 2001

Aqui Ninguém é Burro!, Rio de Janeiro: Revan 1996, 142 p.

O Suicida com Medo da Morte, Rio de Janeiro: Civilização Brasileira 1992, 258 p.

O Corsário do Rei, Rio de Janeiro: Civilização Brasileira 1986, 132 p.

Stop: c’est magique, Rio de Janeiro: Civilização Brasileira 1980, 163 p.
France: Éditions Hachette 1980

Milagre no Brasil, Rio de Janeiro: Civilização Brasileira 1979, 291 p., Ed. Hedra
France: Chandeigne 2021

Categorias do teatro popular, São Paulo: Hucitec 1979, 212 p.
Spain: Ediciones Cepe 1972

Murro em Ponta de Faca, São Paulo: Hucitec 1978, 195 p.
Argentina: Interzona 2021 · Germany: Verlag der Autoren 1990

Mulheres de Atenas

A Tempestade: duas peças, Lisboa: Platano editora 1977, 204 p.

A Barraca Conta Tiradentes, 1977

Jane Spitfire, Rio de Janeiro: Codecri 1977; São Paulo: Moraes 1977, 204 p.

As Aventuras do Tio Patinhas, in Teatro de Augusto Boal, São Paulo: Hucitec 1986-88
Argentina: Interzona

Tio Patinhas e a Pílula, 1974

Crônicas de Nuestra América: O “Gato,” a mulher de Johnny e a bicicleta a motor.–O homem que era uma fábrica.–Processo ao macaco ou ser animal não é atenuante. Nossa Senhora dos Oprimidos.–O cachorro da Rainha e outros cachorros.–O coronel de Maracaibo.–Os ratos e o altar do marido morto.–Acabou a censura.–A gente acaba se acostumando.–A morta imortal, Rio de Janeiro: Codecri 1973, 167 p.
Germany: Verlag der Autoren 1993

Torquemada, La Habana: Casa de las Américas 1972, 310 p.
Germany: Verlag der Autoren 1971; Henschel Verlag 1975

Arena Conta Bolivar, 1969/1970

A Primeira Feira Paulista de Opinião

Tempo de Guerra
Germany: Verlag der Autoren 1967

Arena Conta Tiradentes, 1967, São Paulo: Cosac Naify (forthcoming)

Arena Conta Zumbi
Germany: Verlag der Autoren 1965; Eirich Verlag 1965 (1985)
Germany: Alexander Verlag 2019 (Anthology)

Revolução na América do Sul
Argentina: Interzona 2018
Germany: Verlag der Autoren 1960

José, do Parto à Sepultura
Germany: Verlag der Autoren 1961

Marido Magro, Mulher Chata
Germany: Verlag der Autoren 1957

]]> Mário de Carvalho https://mertinwitt-litag.de/portfolio-items/mario-de-carvalho/ Mon, 19 Oct 2020 11:12:54 +0000 https://mertinwitt-litag.de/?post_type=avada_portfolio&p=14556

Um deusMário de Carvalho

Portugal

Mário de Carvalho, born in Lisbon in 1944, graduated in law at the University of Lisbon. After spending time in prison for political reasons, he went into exile in France and Switzerland, returning to Portugal in 1974. He has received numerous awards, among others the Prémio Literário Fundação Inês de Castro 2013, and is considered one of the great Portuguese contemporary writers.

Mário de Carvalho© Paulo Castanheira

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A arte de morrer longe

A arte de morrer longe (“The Art of Dying Far Away”) is an entertaining satire about a series of apparently unimportant causalities which turn the lives of a middle-class Lisbon couple upside down. Arnaldo and Bárbara have been happily married when one day Bárbara believes she may be in love with her employer’s son. Arnaldo responds by saying that he too is having an affair, although this is not true. On dividing their possessions, they find that neither wants to keep the turtle they once bought together. With fluid language and sharp irony, Mário de Carvalho cleverly portrays society. This amusing novel full of slapstick elements will have the reader laughing out loud or grinning silently to himself.

Quotes

A arte de morrer longe

RIGHTS

NOVELS
So It’s clear That… (“De Maneira que É Claro…”)
Lisbon: Porto Editora 2021, 206 p.
Miguel Torga Grand Literature Prize for Biographies

Ronda das Mil Belas em Frol
Lisbon: Porto 2016, 101 p.

A arte de morrer longe
Lisbon: Caminho 2010, 125 p.
Canada: Les Allusifs 2016

A sala magenta
Lisbon: Caminho 2008, 175 p.
Canada: Les Allusifs 2014

Fantasia para dois coronéis e uma piscina
Lisbon: Caminho 2003, 228 p.; Porto Editora 2015; 2017 200 p.
Croatia: Fraktura 2008 · France: Christian Bourgois 2007 · Serbia: Dereta

Era bom que trocássemos umas ideias sobre o assunto
Lisbon: Caminho 1995, 213 p.
Brazil: Companhia das Letras 2005 · Germany: Klett-Cotta 1997

Um deus passeando pela brisa da tarde
Lisbon: Caminho 1994, 319 p.
Brazil: Companhia das Letras 2006 · Bulgaria: Karina · France: Gallimard 1999, Christian Bourgois 2002 · Germany: Klett-Cotta 1999 · Greece: Enalios 1999 · Italy: Instar Libri 2005 · Poland: ArtRage · Spain: Seix Barral 1998 · UK: Weidenfeld & Nicholson 1997 · USA: Louisiana State University Press 1997

Os alferes
Lisbon: Caminho 1989; Círculo de Leitores 1991, 129 p.
France: Gallimard 1996 · Italy: Instar Libri 2006 · Spain: Txalaparta · United Arab Emirates: National Library

E se tivesse a bondade de me dizer porquê
Lisbon: Rolim 1986; Relógio d’Água 1996, 247 p.

A paixão do Conde de Fróis
Lisbon: Rolim 1986; Círculo de Leitores 1987; Caminho 1993, 204 p.
France: Gallimard 1992

Fabulário
Lisbon: & etc 1984; Caminho 1997, 115 p.

Era uma vez um alferes
Lisbon: Rolim 1984, 38 p.
Colombia: Rocca

O livro grande de Tebas, Navio e Mariana
Lisbon: Vega 1982; Caminho 1996, 225 p.

Casos do beco das sardinheiras
Lisbon: Vega 1981; Rolim 1985, Caminho 1991, 87 p.
France: Atelier in8

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

STORIES
Contos da sétima esfera
Lisbon: Vega 1981; Caminho 1990, 206 p.

Contos soltos
Lisbon: Quatro Elementos Editores 1986, 53 p.

Quatrocentos mil sestércios seguido de o conde Jano
Lisbon: Caminho 1991, 131 p.
Colombia: Rocca

A inaudita guerra da Avenida Gago Coutinho
Rolim 1983; Lisboa: Caminho 1992, 96 p.

Apuros de um pessimista em fuga
Lisbon: Caminho 1999, 80 p.
Germany: dtv 2001 (Uma despedida fleumática)

Contos vagabundos
Lisbon: Caminho 2000, 168 p.

O homem do turbante verde
Lisbon: Caminho 2011, 189 p.
Colombia: Rocca

A liberdade de Pátio
Porto: Porto Editora 2013, 104 S.
Prémio Literário Fundação Inês de Castro 2013

THEATRE
Água em pena de pato
Lisbon: Caminho 1991, 194 p.

Se perguntarem por mim, não estou seguido de Haja Harmonia
Lisbon: Caminho 1999, 234 p.

PARTICIPATION IN ANTHOLOGIES
Lisbon Tales
UK: Oxford University Press 2019
Collectors (Coleccionadores), taken from: “Contos da sétima esfera”

]]> Abelardo Castillo https://mertinwitt-litag.de/portfolio-items/abelardo-castillo/ Mon, 19 Oct 2020 13:45:32 +0000 https://mertinwitt-litag.de/?post_type=avada_portfolio&p=14569

Casa de las Américas PrizeAbelardo Castillo

(1935-2017)
Argentina

Abelardo Castillo was born in Buenos Aires in 1935 and grew up in San Pedro, close to the capital. He worked as a journalist and co-founded and directed the renowned magazines El escarabajo de Oro and El ornitorrinco. Castillo is a brilliant author of novels, short stories, theatrical plays and essays. Among many other prizes, he was awarded the Casa de las Américas Prize in 1961, the International Prize of Contemporary Authors from UNESCO in 1964, the Esteban Echeverría National Prize in 1993, the Platinum Konex Award in 1994, the Diamond Konex Award in 2014 in recognition of his body of work, and the Carlos Fuentes Prize in 2016. He is considered one of the most important authors of Argentina and Latin America.

Abelardo Castillo© Alejandro Guyot

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He Who Is Thirsty

He Who Is Thirsty (“El que tiene sed”) is a beautiful and painful novel that tells of a world bordering on madness: alcoholism, its hell and a breathtaking metaphysical adventure. How to satisfy the impossible, how to fight against the inexhaustible thirst that does not recognize origin, how to realize that life itself is the realization that happiness does not exist. These are the questions that torture Esteban Espósito, an alcoholic writer, in his lucid and drunken perception of reality. With lyricism and crudeness, the author manages to investigate the extremes of human degradation, the daily guilt, the humiliation and the outbursts of fate that push to the very limits of authenticity. The masterly prose of Abelardo Castillo transforms the experience into a true work of art where language acquires all the splendour of the shudder.

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Chronicle of an Initiate

Esteban Espósito, a young writer with an alcohol problem and a penchant for theological inquiry, arrives in the city of Córdoba for a literary symposium he could not care less about. The city is as mythical as it is real, a place where time seems to behave in an inexplicable way, and where Esteban will spend thirty-six decisive hours of his life. October 1962. The imminence of war due to the missile crisis. This is the backdrop to Chronicle of an Initiate (“Crónica de un iniciado”). The love of Esteban and Graciela, the unforgettable figure of Santiago, the Rabelesian apparitions of Father Cherubini and the demonic professor Urba, the traps of benzedrine and sex, the mystery of a city founded cabalistically, make up an exciting surface plot under which lies the real one: Esposito’s journey of initiation that will connect him with other existential searches, with delirium, with the problem of time, with the meaning of life and death, recreating Faust’s pact with the devil for the sake of our arts.

Castillo manages the threads of uncertainty and gives us a monumental novel whose centre is an encrypted knowledge: “there is a secret order, the devil told me”, the protagonist of this chronicle confesses. Is Esteban going to sign the Pact? Does he even have a choice? In the tradition of Goethe and Thomas Mann, of Arlt and Marechal, the metaphysical depth and perfect architecture of “Crónica de un iniciado” simply dazzle.

Quotes

Chronicle of an Initiate

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The Gospel According to Van Hutten

The Gospel According to Van Hutten (“El Evangelio según Van Hutten”) is a bold and captivating revisionist reconstruction of the origins of the Christian era: conspiracies, detective intrigue and fantastical erudition.

How far are the gospels riddled with false claims, and how much important information about the Dead Sea scrolls has been censored? Were the Essenes a secret community split off from Orthodox Judaism, as well as the forerunners of Christianity and educators of Jesus Christ? Was Christ a mere saboteur of doctrines, rather than the son of God? During a vacation in La Cumbrecita, a middle-aged history professor discovers that the controversial archaeologist Estanislao Van Hutten, presumed dead, lives hidden from his detractors with a secret that could shake the most deeply rooted religious beliefs. The revelations made to the historian about the Holy Scriptures are based on the discovery of the ancient Dead Sea scrolls that call into question the official version of the figure of the Messiah.

Abelardo Castillo offers the reader the adventure of decoding a large palimpsest, while enjoying the escalating intrigue. An intelligent novel, original and solidly constructed upon the revelation of a truth: that to be does not need proof.

Quotes

The Gospel According to Van Hutten

RIGHTS

NOVELS
The Gospel According to Van Hutten (“El Evangelio según Van Hutten”)
Buenos Aires: Seix Barral 1999, 2004, 2019, 228 p.
Greece: Kastaniotis 2005 · Italy: Crocetti 2002

Chronicle of an Initiate (“Crónica de un iniciado”)
Buenos Aires: Emecé 1991, Seix Barral 2000, 2019, 357 p.

He Who Is Thirsty (“El que tiene sed”)
Buenos Aires: Emecé 1985, Seix Barral 1994, 2019, 253 p.
Greece: Exandas 2002

NOUVELLE
The House of Ash (“La casa de ceniza“)
Buenos Aires: Estuario 1967, 1977, Seix Barral 2001, 2019, 134 p.

SHORT STORIES
Las maquinarias de la noche
Buenos Aires: Seix Barral 2022, 176 p.

About the World We Knew. Personal Anthology
(“Del mundo que conocimos. Antología personal”)
Buenos Aires: Alfaguara 2016, 200 p.

The Trembling Mirror (”El espejo que tiembla“)
Buenos Aires: Seix Barral 2005, 2022, 128 p.

Antología pessoal
Buenos Aires: Instituto Movilizador de Fondos Cooperativos 1999, 124 p.

Complete Stories (”Cuentos completos“)
Buenos Aires: Alfaguara 1997, 2012, 496 p.

Las Maquinarias de la Noche
Buenos Aires: Emecé 1992, Planeta 2004, 176 p.

Las Panteras y el Templo
Buenos Aires: Ed. Sudamericana 1976, Planeta 2003, Seix Barral 2019, 157 p.

The Real Worlds (“Los mundos reales“)
Santiago de Chile: Editorial Universitaria de Chile 1972, 223 p.
Italy: Del Vecchio 1997, 2015, 261 p.

Cruel Tales (”Cuentos crueles“)
Buenos Aires: Editorial Jorge Alvarez 1966, Emecé 1994, Seix Barral 2000, 125 p.
Italy: Del Vecchio 2024

The Other Doors (”Las otras puertas“)
Buenos Aires: Goyanarte 1961, Emecé 1993, Seix Barral 1999, 2019 , 174 p.
Cuba: Casa de las Américas 1961

PLAYS
Teatro reunido
Buenos Aires: Seix Barral (Planeta) 2023, 232 p.

Teatro completo
Buenos Aires: Emecé 1995, 298 p.

Tres dramas
Ed. Stilcograf 1968

Israfel
Buenos Aires: Ed. Losada 1964, Seix Barral 2001, 137 p.

The Other Judas (”El otro Judas“)
Buenos Aires: Editorial El escarabajo de oro 1961, Seix Barral 2011, 136 p.

ESSAYS
Ensayos reunidos (“Las palabras y los días”, “Desconsideraciones”)
Buenos Aires: Seix Barral 2023

Desconsiderations (”Desconsideraciones“)
Buenos Aires: Seix Barral 2010, 256 p.

Being a Writer (”Ser escritor“)
Buenos Aires: Ed. Perfil 1997, Seix Barral 2007, 2020, 224 p.

Las palabras y los dias
Buenos Aires: Emecé 1988, 1999, 207 p.

DIARIES
Diaries – Volume II (”Diarios – Tomo II“) (1992-2006)
Buenos Aires: Alfaguara 2019, 656 p.

Diaries – Volume I (”Diarios – Tomo I“) (1959-1991)
Buenos Aires: Alfaguara 2014, 647 p.

INTERVIEWS
El Oficio de metir
(12 interviews, by María Fasce)
Buenos Aires: Emecé 1998

]]> Unai Elorriaga https://mertinwitt-litag.de/portfolio-items/unai-elorriaga/ Tue, 20 Oct 2020 13:01:08 +0000 https://mertinwitt-litag.de/?post_type=avada_portfolio&p=14646

Spanish National Prize of LiteratureUnai Elorriaga

Spain / Basque Country

Unai Elorriaga was born in 1973 in Algorta/Getxo on the Basque Coast, where he still lives today. He studied Language and Literature and currently works as a translator and critic. For his first novel, A TRAM TO THE HIMALAYA, he was awarded the Spanish national prize Premio Nacional de Narrativa in 2002. The four following titles were composed in Basque and translated into Spanish by the author himself. For his second latest novel MAPS AND DOGS Elorriaga was awarded the National Critics Awards and was finalist for the Premio Nacional de Literatura in 2015. In 2019, he won the National Critics Awards in the Basque language for his novel WE DON´T HANG ANYONE. His most recent novel, ABOUT THE FIVE SOULS OF FRANCESCO PASQUALE, won the Euskadi Prize for Literature 2025 in the category Basque Literature.

© Private

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About the Five Souls of Francesco Pasquale

Francesco Pasquale, a young coppersmith, leaves Sapri, on the Amalfi coast south of Naples, apparently fleeing from the monarchy and soldiers of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. It seems that he worked clandestinely for a secret society called Carbonari, which was an informal network of secret revolutionary societies active in Italy from about 1800 to 1831. Crossing the Mediterranean, he arrives in Barcelona and ends up in Bermeo in the Basque Country, a coastal town with a lot of character, the capital of Bizkaia before Bilbao, where he marries twice and becomes the father of several children. His neighbours only own three records, by Robert Schumann, Giuseppe Verdi and Richard Wagner, three contemporary composers of Francesco’s times. As he lies on his deathbed, their sounds reach his ears through the window, while he remembers his childhood in Sapri.
Francesco‘s life is marked in first place by his condition as a migrant. Human beings usually have four souls: one in childhood, another in youth, another in maturity, and another in old age. But migrants, like Francesco, have a fifth soul, which lies between their place of birth and where they have, or where they have decided to live.
What sets About the Five Souls of Francesco Pasquale (“Sobre las cinco almas de Francesco Pasquale”) apart, is its structure, letting stories and tales fly together, making use of different storytelling techniques and narrators, forming a remarkable novel with a unique character.

Quotes

About the Five Souls of Francesco Pasquale

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We Don’t Hang Anyone

In this novel, Elorriaga sends two almost eighty-year-old friends from the Basque Country, who could hardly be more dissimilar, on a final journey through Eastern Europe: Erroman, who tells us the story, is the epitome of calmness, Soro Barturen is eccentric, a millionaire and seriously ill. Despite this – or perhaps because of it – Barturen pursues his missing friend Pedro Iturria, with whom he had once studied engineering in London, like an obsessed man, with Erroman always at his side. Iturria had a passion for writing. Now the two friends follow the trail of his writings, published in the respective local languages, from Prague via Budapest and Warsaw to Moscow, for which the translators, especially Eszter Nagy, a Hungarian of Argentinean origin, are of special importance. In their conversations with Barturen, they have to answer all his questions.
Part of the novel is made up of some of the fascinating stories of the misunderstood genius Iturria. They deal with the deeper meaning of life in exceptional situations and depict dystopian visions of reality. The title story We Don’t Hang Anyone (“Iturria”/”Nosotros no ahorcamos a nadie”) stands out in particular: it culminates in the public hanging of five people and, with the simultaneous presence of past and future elements and an undefined controlling authority with terrifying rules, inevitably calls to mind Margaret Atwood’s novel “The Handmaid’s Tale”. The novel develops into an enjoyable literary scavenger hunt celebrating friendship and the art of storytelling.

Quotes

We Don´ t Hang Anyone

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Maps and Dogs

Irene Arrias was born in Algorta, but she also looks straight ahead, without filters, at the rest of the world. That is why she is obsessed with all the forms of violence that, near or far, she is able to feel as her own: attacks, torture, murders, rapes, attacks, persecutions, massacres, executions, crimes and wars. Maps and Dogs (“Mapas y Perros”), originally published in 2014 in Basque, is Unai Elorriaga’s fifth novel. Winner of the Critics’ Prize in 2015 for its “pessimistic vision of the human condition” and finalist for the National Fiction Prize and the Basque Literature Prize, this book proposes a sort of panopticon of violence capable of tracing a route that leaves Algorta and crosses the world, through a network of dark events narrated with sordidness and precision that place us in front of the always convex mirrors of cruelty and fear.

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London Is Made of Card

The young protagonist Phineas is convinced that his vanished sister Sora has been abducted by the henchmen of the dictatorship terrorising their small town. Despite all the risks involved, he sets out to search for her. Phineas comes across reports and documentations of the permanent spying, torture and forced operations used to oppress every dissident in the surveillance state. Into this first part of his novel London Is Made of Card (“Londres es de cartón”) Elorriaga weaves a second strand, which reads like a typical English detective story. An elderly lady has been murdered and three men start the detective work of revealing the killer. The murderer they find is the schizophrenic Sora, who is put into a psychiatric ward. Although Phineas finds out what really happened to his sister in the end, he never loses hope of one day seeing her again. London Is Made of Card questions our familiar perception of reading. With virtuoso skill, the author uses dreams and imitation, confronting the reader with the horrors of a nameless dictatorship and the dubious nature of deductive investigations. Elorriaga is a master in showing us the gaps left behind by a desaparecido.

Quotes

London Is Made of Card

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Plants Don’t Drink Coffee

In Plants Don’t Drink Coffee (“Vredaman”) Unai Elorriaga tells the enchanting tales of a small Basque village. At first, we meet Tomas, whose childlike perspective forms one of four narrative strands. Since his father is in poor health, the boy spends the summer at his aunt’s house and goes hunting for insects with his older cousin. To catch the rare blue dragonfly is his highest ambition. As before with age, the author here skilfully encapsulates the child’s world with his imaginative and playful language. The most ambitious project of the summer, however, is impelled by Uncle Simón. As a rugby fan he has a tough stand in Spain, where only rarely a game is transmitted, let alone carried out. Yet with the help of 82-year old Piedad, who once lived in England and speaks the language, he manages to realize his wildest dream, to referee a game in Wales against Ireland. The game is a huge success for him, but he goes even further: Simón invites both teams back to his village. Here both players and spectators clamber over the walls of the nearby golf course where Simón and his friends have prepared a pitch. When the police eventually arrive on the sidelines, indecisive and late, the final whistle is blown and all disappear to conclude the evening on the beach. In scenes which sometimes border on the surreal, Unai Elorriaga presents us with a world in which dreams and desires still form part of everyday life. His protagonists are often simple human beings, who emanate a great kindness and who charm their environment and the reader alike.

Quotes

Plants Don’t Drink Coffee

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A Tram to the Himalaya

A Tram to the Himalaya (“Un tranvía en SP”) tells of an unusual friendship between a young busker and a pair of elderly siblings. Critics were thrilled by the young author’s startlingly perceptive approach to thorny topics such as age, forgetfulness and death. Moreover, they rejoiced at his wilful style.

Quotes

A Tram to the Himalaya

RIGHTS

NOVELS
About the Five Souls of Francesco Pasquale
(“Sobre las cinco almas de Francesco Pascuale”)
Zarautz: Susa 2024, 211 p.; Barcelona: Galaxia Gutenberg 2025, 168 p.
(original title in Basque: “Francesco Pasqualeren bosgarren arima”)
Euskadi Prize for Literature 2025 in the category Basque Literature

We Don’t Hang Anyone (“Nosotros no ahorcamos a nadie”)
Zarautz: Susa 2019, 241 p.; Barcelona: Galaxia Gutenberg 2023, 216 p.
(original title in Basque: “Iturria”)
National Critics Award in Basque language 2019
National Critics´ Prize 2019
Pluma de Plata Prize of the Bilbao Book Fair 2023 (with Juan Luis Arsuaga)

Maps and Dogs (“Mapas y perros”)
Zarautz: Susa 2014, 376 p., Navarra: Txalaparta 2024, 325 p.
(original title in Basque: “Iazko hezurrak”)
National Critics Award 2015
Finalist of National Literature Prize 2015
USA: Archipelago Books

London Is Made of Card (“Londres es de cartón“)
Donostia-San Sebastián: Elkar 2009, 218 p.; Madrid: Alfaguara 2010, 216 p.
(original title in Basque: “Londres kartoizkoa da”)

Plants Don’t Drink Coffee (“Vredaman”)
Donostia-San Sebastián: Elkar 2005, 206 p.; Madrid: Alfaguara 2006, 188 p.
(original title in Basque: “Vredaman”)
Catalan: RBA – La Magrana 2006 · Galician: Galaxia 2006 · Italy: Gran Vía 2008 · USA: Archipelago Books 2009

Van’t Hoff’s Hair (“El pelo de Van’t Hoff“)
Donostia-San Sebastián: Elkar 2003, 218 p.; Madrid: Alfaguara 2004, Punto de lectura pb, 211 p.
(original title in Basque: “Van’t Hoffen ilea”)
Galician: Galaxia 2004

A Tram to the Himalaya (“Un tranvía en SP”)
Donostia-San Sebastián: Elkar 2001, 153 p.; Madrid: Alfaguara 2003, Punto de lectura pb 2004, 175 p.
(original title in Basque: “SPrako Tranbia”)
Premio Nacional de Narrativa 2002
Over 100.000 copies sold
Filmed in 2008 with Daniel Brühl (Good Bye, Lenin), entitled “Un poco de chocolate”
Polish translation available
Catalan: Proa 2003 · Estonia: Loomingu 2005 · Galician: Galaxia 2002 · Germany: Schöffling 2005, pb Piper 2006 · Italy: Gran Vía 2008 · Serbia: Samizdat B92 2005

CHILDREN’S BOOKS
Giants Don’t Eat Their Friends (“Los gigantes no se comen a sus amigos“)
(Ill. by Alejandro de Orbe Ferreiro)
Bilbao: Begiko, Zubia (Santillana) 2018, 78 p.
(original title in Basque: “Erraldoiek ez dute lagunik jaten”)

107 Kiwis (“107 kiwis“)
(Ill. by Mikel Santos Martinez)
Donostia-San Sebastián: Elkar 2015, 55 p.
(original title in Basque: “107 kiwi”)

Zizili
(Ill. by Mai Egurza Arruti)
Donostia-San Sebastián: Elkar 2012, 99 p.

Grasshoppers’ Ears (“Las orejas de los saltamontes“)
(Ill. by Eider Eibar Zugazabeitia)
Donostia-San Sebastián: Elkar 2006, 122 p.; Madrid: Alfaguara 2013, 111 p.
(original title in Basque: “Matxinsaltoen belarriak”)

THEATRE
And the Fish Sneezed (“Y los peces estornudaron”)
(bilingual edition Basque-Spanish)
Buenos Aires: Letranómada 2008, 110 p.
(original title in Basque: “Doministiku egin dute arrainek”)

]]> José Luiz Passos https://mertinwitt-litag.de/portfolio-items/jose-luiz-passos/ Wed, 28 Oct 2020 11:06:00 +0000 https://mertinwitt-litag.de/?post_type=avada_portfolio&p=15081

Telecom Prize (Océanos) 2013José Luiz Passos

Brazil

José Luiz Passos, born in Catende, Pernambuco, in 1971, is Professor of Luso-Brazilian Literatures and Cultures at the University of California in LA. He was also director of the Center for Brazilian Studies and has published a number of short stories, essays and plays. His novel O SONÂMBULO AMADOR won the Telecom Prize 2013 and the PT Grand Prize 2013. It also received the Brasília Literary Prize 2014 for the best novel published in 2012 and 2013.

You are also welcome to visit the author’s website: > jlpassos.com

José Luiz Passos© Fernanda Fiamoncini

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O marechal de costas

A domestic worker confronts her rural origins against the backdrop of the 2013 political protests in Rio. As demonstrators rail against President Dilma Rousseff’s government, this aging woman—a cook—listens to the endless chatter of a professor who tries to account for her life’s hardships and the current shortcomings of Brazilian democracy. They embark on a journey into politics highlighted by her supposed connection to Brazil’s first dictator Floriano Peixoto, known as the Iron Marshal. The cook obsesses over her supposed relative and President Rousseff’s recent speeches. Walking the same streets Floriano had walked a century earlier she and the professor contemplate an eerie parallel between the beginnings of Brazilian democracy and its current challenges.

Blending fact and fiction, O marechal de costas (“The Iron Marshal”) depicts these challenges in a complex and engaging panorama of Brazilian politics over the past 120 years.

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O sonâmbulo amador

A few days before retiring, Jurandir travels to Recife to settle a labour issue and ends up committed to a psychiatric hospital. Reporting on his dreams while remembering his affair with a colleague and the tragic death of his son André, a different perspective on his past life starts to unfold. O sonâmbulo amador (“The Amateur Sleepwalker”) chronicles the adventures of a disenchanted, humble protagonist, revealing the wounds of his past as in a jigsaw. The novel won the Telecom Prize 2013.

Quotes

O sonâmbulo amador

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Nosso grão mais fino

His debut novel Nosso grão mais fino (“Our Finer Grain”) is a lyrical portrait of family decadence and love gone wrong in twentieth-century Brazil. Ana and Vicente recall the ending of their affair and how it started back on their families’ sugarcane plantation. Together, they try to make sense of Ana’s father’s suicide during a Zeppelin trip, which changed their lives: Ana married Vicente’s uncle and made Vicente her secret lover, thus leaving both men in limbo. But while Vicente prefers the uncanny presence of past possibilities, Ana holds on to real life. The innovative unfolding of the narrative and the dense atmosphere make this novel the new literary discovery from Brazil.

Quotes

Nosso grão mais fino

RIGHTS

NOVELS
O marchal de costas
Rio de Janeiro: Alfaguara 2016
English sample translation available

Nosso grão mais fino
Rio de Janeiro: Alfaguara 2009, 157 p.
English sample translation available

O sonâmbulo amador
Rio de Janeiro: Alfaguara, 2012, 270 p.
Excerpt in Magazine Granta (Brazilian edition), 2011
English sample translation available
Telecom Prize 2013 and PT Grand Prize 2013
Brasília Literary Prize for the best novel published in 2012 and 2013
Argentina: Edhasa 2015 · Norway: Solum Forlag 2018

STORIES (SELECTION)
Nova continuidade dos parques
Berkeley: University of California (Lucero: A Journal of Iberian and Latin American Studies) 1998

Laszlo, Marisa e meu pai
Berkeley: University of California (Lucero: A Journal of Iberian and Latin American Studies) 2006

Averrós
São Paulo: Revista É 2009

THEATRE (SELECTION)
Carmelo’s War, 79 p.
In English competitively selected for a staged reading at the 32nd Comparative Drama Conference, Los Angeles 2008

NON-FICTION (SELECTION)
Ruínas de linhas puras: quatro ensaios em torno a Macunaíma
São Paulo: Annablume Editora 1998, 134 p.

Machado de Assis’ Library: Drama and Deception in the Rise of Brazilian Realism
Berkeley: University of California 1999, 32 p.

Machado de Assis, o romance com pessoas
São Paulo: Nankin/Edusp, University of São Paulo Press 2008, 296 p.

PARTICIPATION IN ANTHOLOGIES
Brésil 25 – 2000-2015
France: Métailié 2015

Cuentos en tránsito. Antología de narrativa brasileña
Argentina: Alfaguara 2014, 225 p.

]]> Sergio Schmucler https://mertinwitt-litag.de/portfolio-items/sergio-schmucler/ Thu, 29 Oct 2020 11:23:54 +0000 https://mertinwitt-litag.de/?post_type=avada_portfolio&p=15204

El guardián de la calle ÁmsterdamSergio Schmucler

(1959-2019)
Argentina / Mexico

Sergio Schmucler, born in Córdoba, Argentina in 1959, went into exile to Mexico at the age of seventeen where he studied social anthropology and screenwriting. Since 2002 he lived between Mexico and Argentina. In 2001 he received the Ariel Award from the Mexican Academy of Film for the screenplay of CRÓNICA DE UN DESAYUNO. His recent film credits were for the documentary film GUACHOS DE LA CALL. MEMORIAS DEL DESARRAIGO (Argentina, 2015) and the TV documentary series CANCIÓN URGENTE (Argentina, 2013). Sergio Schmucler was a tireless fighter for human rights, a relevant scriptwriter and novelist.

Sergio Schmucler© The Estate of Sergio Schmucler

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The Guardian of Amsterdam Street

There is a street in Mexico City formed like an ellipse. If you walk by it, you will find yourself passing by the same places again and again. This disturbing detail brings us into the world of Galo, a child who lives in this street and is trapped within his interpretation of a double family mandate: his father has told him “you’ll be a carpenter or you will not be anything,” whereas his mother has told him “my son will never leave this house.” Galo chooses to be nothing and not to leave his home. But the world and history end up coming to his home. After his father goes away with another woman, his mother rents out rooms which are occupied for a time by a Jewish family fleeing the Nazis, by a Spanish barber who escaped the civil war, and by some young Latin American revolutionaries. Galo observes and lives together with these people, trying to understand their ideals and their lives, which in turn will allow him to create his own view of the world and witness important events of the twentieth century.

The Guardian of Amsterdam Street (“El guardián de la calle Ámsterdam”) is a cool and bright book, relating both big and small dramas with humour. A deeply human book that tells a moving story and the possible ways of being in the world and transforming it through our actions. It raises many questions. Perhaps one of the most powerful is this: What can we contribute – from joy or from anger – to bring about what we think needs to happen?

Quotes

The Guardian of Amsterdam Street

RIGHTS

NOVELS
La cabeza de Mariano Rosas
Buenos Aires: Marea Editorial, 2018, 176 p.

The Guardian of Amsterdam Street (“El guardián de la calle Ámsterdam”)
Buenos Aires: Noches Blancas 2013, 197 p.
English sample translation available
Canada: House of Anansi Press · France: Liana Levi 2017 · Italy: Musicaos · Mexico: Elefanta 2014

Detrás del vidrio
Buenos Aires: Siglo XXI 2000, 222 p.
Mexico: Ediciones Era 2000

FEATURE FILMS (SELECTION)
La Sombra Azul, Argentina 2012
Screenplay, Production and Direction

La Herencia, Argentina 2008
Screenplay and Direction

Crónica de un desayuno, Mexico 1999
Screenplay
Ariel Award from the Mexican Academy of Film for the screenplay

Laberinto Mortal, Argentina, 1989
Screenplay and Direction

DOCUMENTARY FILMS (SELECTION)
Guachos de la calle. Memorias del desarraigo, Argentina 2015
Screenplay and Direction

Curapaligüe. Memorias del desierto, Argentina 2010
Screenplay, Production and Direction

Canción de Mariano, Argentina 2005
Screenplay and Direction

¿Y Bonino?, Argentina 2002
Direction

TV-SERIES (SELECTION)
Canción Urgente, Argentina 2012
Screenplay, Production and Direction

Cordobesas y cordobeses del Bicentenario, Argentina 2010
Screenplay and Direction

THEATRE (SELECTION)
Chantecler Chantecler, Argentina 2003
authorship

Ahí vienen los chilangos, Mexico 1986
Authorship and Direction

]]> Gonçalo M. Tavares https://mertinwitt-litag.de/portfolio-items/goncalo-m-tavares/ Thu, 29 Oct 2020 18:53:16 +0000 https://mertinwitt-litag.de/?post_type=avada_portfolio&p=15250

Portugal’s third most translated authorGonçalo M. Tavares

Portugal

Gonçalo M. Tavares was born in Luanda in 1970 and teaches Theory of Science in Lisbon. Nobel Laureate José Saramago stated: »In thirty years’ time, if not before, Tavares will win the Nobel Prize, and I’m sure my prediction will come true… Tavares has no right to be writing so well at the age of 35. One feels like punching him.«Tavares has surprised his readers with the variety of books he has published since 2001 and has been awarded an impressive amount of national and international literary prizes in a very short time. In 2005 he won the José Saramago Prize for young writers under 35. In his speech at the award ceremony, Saramago commented: JERUSALÉM is a great book, and truly deserves a place among the great works of Western literature. JERUSALÉM was also awarded the Prêmio Portugal Telecom de Literatura em Língua Portuguesa 2007 and the LER/Millenium Prize. His novel LEARNING TO PRAY IN THE AGE OF TECHNOLOGY has received the prestigious Prize of the Best Foreign Book 2010 in France. This award has so far been given to authors like Salman Rushdie, Elias Canetti, Robert Musil, Orhan Pamuk, John Updike, Philip Roth, Gabriel García Márquez and Colm Tóibín. LEARNING TO PRAY was also shortlisted for the renowned French literary awards Femina Étranger Prize and Médicis Prize and won the Special Price of the Jury of the Grand Prix Littéraire du Web Cultura 2010. In 2011, Tavares received the renowned Grande Prêmio da Associação Portuguesa de Escritores, as well as the prestigious Prémio Literário Fernando Namora 2011. The author was also nominated for the renowned Dutch Europese Literatuurprijs 2013 and was on the Longlist of the Best Translated Book Award Fiction 2013. He was also nominated for the International IMPAC Dublin award 2013 and, most recently, for the Prix Jean-Monnet de Littérature Européenne 2015. MATTEO LOST HIS JOB is among the five shortlisted authors for the prestigious Prix Femina 2016 foreign fiction. According to the Portuguese Book Institute DGLAB, Gonçalo M. Tavares is the third most translated Portuguese author, after Fernando Pessoa and Eça de Queiroz, with 226 publications worldwide. Gonçalo M. Tavares has been awarded the 2026 Formentor Prize for Literature, considered a prelude to the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Gonçalo M. Tavares’ rights have been sold in 70 countries.

Gonçalo M. Tavares© Joana Caiano

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Quotes

About the Author

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The End of the United States of America. An Epic

In The End of the United States of America. An Epic (“O Fim dos Estados Unidos da América. Epopeia”), in the middle of an American football game, a terrible plague enters the United States of America. In the midst of this is Bloom, the hero of the epic, who, like Oedipus, will meet a terrible fate but will try to save America from falling apart. Bloom gets into his car to travel across the United States in search of a solution, but also looking for his love, the Mexican La Rosa.

The two political leaders, Ted Trash, right-wing extremist and Left Wing, communist and left-wing extremist, instead of pacifying the country, fight for its separation. At a certain point, it becomes clear that the Plague only affects the poor. In some states, they are placed in ghettos. Different states adopt opposing laws. There is a division between Marxist-extremists and fascists. Tensions escalate until they lead to the Second Civil War. The country is divided in two, Homo Pobrus and Homo Ricus, genetically separated, becoming two distinct species incapable of reproducing with each other. The poor die at an average age of forty-two, while the rich live to one hundred and thirty. Bloom is rich, La Rosa is poor.

Bloom, who thought he was a natural-born American, was actually adopted by an American couple living in New York. When he receives an oracle saying that he will save America but also kill his father and mother, Bloom decides to distance himself from the parents he believes to be his real ones. What happens is that, on his journey across America to try to find the plague, he accidentally kills his real father in a car accident and sleeps with his real mother, without knowing it, at a hippie camp. Bloom finally finds La Rosa, the woman he met at the beginning of the epic. The two stay together. And La Rosa becomes pregnant. This means that the two have once again made the genes of the poor and the rich compatible.

Ted Trash and Left Wing each lead their own army, dividing the country in two. But Bloom, without realising it, saves America not from the plague but from the genetic division. It is as if Bloom and La Rosa were the new Adam and Eve, recreating a single human species.

Quotes

The End of the United States of America. An Epic

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Mussolini’s Boots

A prose sonorously thought out and designed to be read in a hushed voice, as Gonçalo M. Tavares defines it, this is the book Mussolini’s Boots (“As Botas de Mussolini”). It is the beginning of a Fragmented History of the World (“História Fragmentada do Mundo”), which starts by analysing news from the 21st century and the memory of historical characters and facts. Its pages include Robespierre, one of the exponents of the French Revolution; Turing, a genius of detail and numbers; the hand of Hitler as a young painter and the biography of his niece, Geli Raubal, with whom the dictator is said to have fallen in love; the great fire in Tokyo in 1923 and the voice of Emperor Hirohito of Japan when, over the radio, he decreed his country’s surrender; the tragedy of the architect Frank Lloyd Wright and the follies of the juggler Joseph L. Greenstein, who wandered around the world. Greenstein, who wandered the American fairs of the 20th century; the turbulent life of Malcolm X; Enrico Fermi’s atomic reactor, linked to the atomic bomb; the high-speed tragedy of Marilyn Monroe; and the imposing finger of Tito, president of Yugoslavia; the day the Berlin Wall was erected and Nietzsche’s sanatorium; the trial of a Nazi in 2020, already 93 years old; and the high boots of Mussolini, the Italian dictator. These are flashes, small fragments, notes.

Quotes

Mussolini’s Boots / Fragmented History of the World

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Short Notes on the Orient

Bashô tells a short story of his many journeys. He is leaving for the city of Maruoka and his great friend, Hokushi, who is from Kanazawa, thought he would only accompany him for a short distance – “but ended up travelling all the way to Maruoka, unable to say goodbye”. So we have a friend who endlessly says goodbye to the other, travelling all the way on a journey that is not his own. And then I imagine the continuation of this story. Now it would be Bashô’s friend Hokushi who would have to leave for his home, and Bashô would go with him, just a few metres, just to say goodbye, but he wouldn’t be able to let go of him and would go with him all the way back to Kanazawa. Imagine a farewell like this, uninterrupted, between two humans. Two humans who could spend a lifetime saying goodbye to each other like this, with such ceremony and delicacy.

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Dictionary of Artists

This Dictionary of Artists (“Dicionário de Artistas”), this Museum, starts from a detail, a tiny fragment, or the very central core of an artist’s work, and from there the text moves somewhere else. In the way that an animal that is hungry leaves its nest to go to a place where it senses food, thus the text starts its journey. But there is nothing didactic or explanatory about it, the texts in this Dictionary are autonomous beings that go out into the streets free and completely alone after midnight.

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The Middle Bone

The Middle Bone (“O Osso do Meio”) forms part of the universe of The Kingdom (“O Reino”), next in the series following Klaus Klump: A Man (“Um homem: Klaus Klump“), Joseph Walser’s Machine (“A Máquina de Joseph Walser”), Jerusalem, and Learning to Pray in the Age of Technology (“Aprender a rezar na Era da Técnica”). Perhaps a tone, books with tones (colours, aggression, speed) rather than literary genres. A tone such as this: how does evil, excitement, passivity and violence flow through the many soils of the earth? Taking place in a post-war period, in a movement of collective hangover. It is a book where the middle is there, right at the beginning, and there it remains until the end. Three men and a woman caught up in a point of their violent, (almost) happy lives. Happiness has many variations and some are not at all benign. Kahnnak, Albert Mulder, Maria Llurbai, Vassliss Rania: three men and a woman. A harsh and sad book.

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Plague Diary

Tavares has been writing a daily column for the renowned Portuguese newspaper Expresso tracking the COVID-19 pandemic, entitled Plague Diary (“Diário da Peste”). The first entry in Englishtranslation by Daniel Hahn went online at Words Without Borders. Several texts have been published at: Granta, Bookanista, PEN Transmissions, Asymptote, Politics/Letters, Onomatomania, The Massachusetts Reviews, Scroll, The White Review, and TLS. A chronological survey and access to the English translations can be found here: > danielhahn.co.uk. Plague Diary is also available in Argentina, Bulgaria, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Greece, India, Italy, The Netherlands, Peru, and Venezuela.

First book rights have been sold in Greece, Spain and for Romanian language.

Quotes

Plague Diary

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In America, Said Jonathan

In America, Said Jonathan (“Na América, Disse Jonathan”) is a book that relates a trip through the United States of America. During this trip, the protagonist writes a diary that follows his real and imaginary adventures. It is a ­ ctional diary. The author brings a portrait of Kafka to the United States of America and puts it in various places throughout the country, including the supermarket shelves of 7-Eleven convenience stores. Kafka’s portrait seems to disturb a country the size of the United States of America. As if Kafka‘s face were asking uncomfortable questions of this great country.

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Mythologies

Mythologies (“Mitologias”), is one of the most important literary universes of Gonçalo M. Tavares. This world – which is now beginning to be published – blends men, machines, animals, and objects in a 21st Century mythology that can be read in any order of entry. It is a return to the traditional Once Upon a Time format set in a mythical time, which mixes dates and exchanges narrative orders in a space without geographic location. There is a suspension of normal physical laws, a different logic, other narrative conventions, in a zone of freedom that deals with evil, human temptations and their disorders and fears. Five children go through this world and just want what everyone wants: to survive as they grow.

Quotes

Mythologies

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The Devil

The Devil (“O Diabo”) is the story of the Devil who sits wellbehaved at the table but who is quickly led astray by children. Mythologies is a universe of fiction by Gonçalo M. Tavares, the result of a five-year creative process, a unique work of great literary richness and brilliance, using the narrative tradition of orality and fantasy, in which the author places humankind and history in a mythological dimension that he distorts, to show and explore more fully what is human nature. It is a return to ‘Once Upon a Time’ set in a mythical time, mixing dates and swapping narrative orders, in a space without geographical location.

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Five Children, Five Rats

In the middle of the forest, five children lost. Or four. Because the youngest of the sisters got lost from those who were already lost. The children find a man-with-the-evil-eye, but he‘s good. They also encounter Speed, which is a dangerous element that makes men mad. There is a Train that does not like humans and a man who cannot stop gawping at the world. There is a tiny church where a body can barely fit, but this body has room to pray. And there are those who come out cured of very small spaces. In Five Children, Five Rats (“Cinco Meninos, Cinco Ratos”) we are in a mythological narrative, and machines and animals have since long ceased to be mere helpers or friends. There are very hungry machines.

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The Woman-Without-a-Head and the Man-With-the-Evil-Eye

In The Woman-Without-a-Head and the Man-With-the-Evil-Eye (“A Mulher Sem-Cabeça e o Homem-do-Mau-Olhado”), Gonçalo M. Tavares repositions mankind and history within a mythological dimension, which he distorts in order to clarify, and through which, using the narrative universe of orality and fantasy, he brilliantly explores the essence of human nature. A woman’s head is beaten off, but she can still walk upright. A man with an evil eye cannot look at his bride. Five children of the king are devoured by a machine. A famous neurologist wants to give a poor madman a smile. And a group of downtrodden wretches builds a flying machine to flee before the revolution. If Kafka had rewritten Ovid’s “Metamorphoses”, this book would have been the result.

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Encyclopaedia // Short Notes on Literature-Bloom

The effort to distinguish various forms of knowledge production has been a constant occupation of Tavares; in particular distinguishing independent science from literature, the main theme of the last part of Encyclopaedia (“Encyclopédia”), entitled Short Notes on Literature-Bloom (“Breves Notas sobre a Literatura-Bloom”). Science, according to Tavares, is focussed on all that can be repeated; literature, on everything that is unrepeatable. Science was created to resolve paradoxes and contradictions; literature, on the contrary, requires “specialists in mystery”. But not mysteries for detectives, Tavares points out, not those mysteries that end with the discovery of the murderer: to study mystery means increasing, not decreasing it, so that at the end of Literature-Bloom the reader knows less facts than he did before. This paradoxical logic, this wild arithmetic, is one of the central issues of Tavares poetic and literary language: to domestication, it counters with estrangement; to the desire to control, the ethics of dispossession.

(Borja Bagunyà)

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His Excellency, The Circumlucologist

His Excellency, The Circumlucologist (“O Torcicologologista, Excelência”) is a work of fiction: ironic and capable of making one burst out in laughter, but also a painful book, composed of two very different parts. The first, wherein disenchantment intersects with corrosive humor, is composed of fictional dialogues between two characters, the Excellencies, created and developed over a few years by Gonçalo M. Tavares in the pages of a newspaper. Your Excellency speaks to Your Excellency, and–in the middle of the absurdity that is existence and the attempt to understand it–the two discourse on good and evil, revolutions, boredom, dance and laziness, big questions and minor mishaps, leaps forward and major downfalls. Continuous irony, humor, and sabotage of thought and language progress in the dialogue between these two curious Excellencies, characters of impeccable manners and a quick, comical wit.

The second part of O Torcicologologista, Excelência takes the reader to commotion of the city, to the small gestures and great tragedies that there reside. An accelerated tragedy in which an abrupt zoom into and quick glance at humanity brings a collective character to the foreground: the city, the modern city, with its illnesses, its obsessions, and, sometimes, its hopes.

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A Girl is Lost in Her Century, Looking for Her Father

A Girl is Lost in Her Century, Looking for Her Father (“Uma Menina Está Perdida no seu Século à Procura do Pai”) tells the story of Hanna, a 12-year-old girl with Down’s syndrome. Together with Marius, a man who seems to be hiding from something, she embarks on a journey through cities haunted by traces of World War II. Once more, Tavares takes his readers to a dismal world that poses existential questions.

Quotes

A Girl is Lost in Her Century Looking for Her Father

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Old People Want to Live Too

The Greek myth of the tragedy Alceste, by the playwright Euripides, is revived in Old People Want to Live Too (“Os Velhos Também Querem Viver”). In this novel-poem, Gonçalo M. Tavares stages the drama in contemporary Sarajevo and discusses issues such as death, love, sacrifice, the value of thousands of lives, and the value of just one.

Quotes

Old People Want to Live Too

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Atlas of the Body and the Imagination

Atlas of the Body and the Imagination (“Atlas do corpo e da imaginação”) is a multilayered essay that revolves around literature and art, addressing topics like fiction, identity, technology and desire. With a firm hand and lucid spirit, Tavares guides us around the labyrinthine world we live in, revisiting the work of some of the most important contemporary thinkers, among them Wittgenstein, Hannah Arendt and Nietzsche.

Please find here the trailer of the Portuguese edition: > Atlas do corpo e da imaginação Booktrailer

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A Voyage to India

Gonçalo M. Tavares’ novel A Voyage to India (“Uma Viagem à Índia”) is a mental journey as well as a physical one. Written in easily accessible language, which stands in stark contrast to its epic form inspired by The Lusiads, A Voyage to India relates the experiences Bloom has on his way to India and back.

Quotes

A Voyage to India

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The Neighbourhood

The Neighbourhood (“O Bairro”) describes a utopian neighbourhood whose characters share the names of great artists and writers, almost a literary version of Asterix’s village.

From an impressive list of works published in swift succession which surprise readers by their philosophical mind quizzes, diffidently and ironically told events and broad stylistic variations, choice is made here of a number in which the main protagonist is a “Senhor”: Mr Valéry and Logic (”O Senhor Valéry e a Lógica“) embraces 25 short, playfully-philosophical stories about Mr. Valéry, who is short but tries hard to adapt to his surroundings, more or less successfully. With apparent childlike naivety he upsets the rules of logic and reason. For example, he jumps up and down in order to be as tall as his fellow men, declaring: I am as tall as tall people, only for a shorter while.

Mr Henri and the Encyclopaedia (”O Senhor Henri e a Enciclopédia“), a close relative of Mr. Valéry’s, is a bit more egocentric and conceited and likes to dabble in paradoxical matters and linguistic games, besides being very partial to absinthe. Mister Henri says … it’s true that if a man mixes absinthe with reality it makes for a better reality … yet it’s also the case that if a man mixes absinthe with reality it makes for a worse reality …

Mr Swedenborg and the Geometrical Investigations (”O Senhor Swedenborg e as Investigações Geométricas“), the latest resident in the writer’s quarter, is based on a Swedish scientist, theologian and mystic who, in the eighteenth century, wrote a large amount of fiction in Latin. Tavares’ Swedenborg uses the lectures that his colleagues and the people living in his neighbourhood give, to help him think through and carry out his geometric research. His reflections on memory, the mirror, seduction, desire, death and dozens of other things, are acute observations on life, always from a geometric and logical perspective and written in the familiar and jocular tone of the Senhores.

And other gentlemen, neighbours in a fictional writers´quarter, are introduced in book form such as Mr. Brecht, Mr. Juarroz, Mr. Calvino, Mr. Walser, Mr. Kraus and Mr. Eliot.

Quotes

The Neighbourhood

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The Kingdom

In a series which the author calls The Kingdom (“O Reino”), Tavares has published four novels which – this time in a less playful manner – address the topic of the essence of human existence.

Just like Walser’s dark notebooks, Gonçalo M. Tavares’ Black Books continue to give their version of the world we live in, […] of individual conscience, and the fragility of a human being in the play of existential forces, and the indifference or alienation of the individual. Joseph Walser’s Machine (“A Máquina de Joseph Walser”), following Klaus Klump: A Man (“Um Homem: Klaus Klump”), is constructed as an attempt at apprehending the essence of humanity, drawing on material with the soul of a frighteningly rational world.

Quotes

The Kingdom

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Jerusalém

In Jerusalém Ernst Spengler finds himself alone in the night of the 29th of May. He is about to throw himself out of the window. Suddenly the phone rings. Change of scene: The thirty-year-old Mylia is in her apartment and suffering great pain. She is terminally ill. She leaves the flat to go to a church. Ever since the war ended, Hinnerek Obst can not go out into the street without fear. For his eerie guise he is taken to be a murderer. He too is roaming the streets this night. Theodor Busbeck, doctor, historian and ex-husband of Mylia likewise leaves his apartment at 3 am in the morning in search of a prostitute. Mylia had one day turned up at his surgery and said I am schizophrenically mad. Would you like to cure me? The two had married. Later, however, Theodor left his wife in a psychiatric clinic. For years he had worked on developing a mathematical formula to foresee future crimes in the history of mankind.

In a clear and objective language, this book tells a strange and disconcerting story. It seems as though a secret force is leading the individual characters to their encounter in this particular night. A world coined by violence, fear, pain and insanity is evoked. The author succeeds in combining an exceedingly attention-grabbing story full of surprising contemplations on human nature with the diverse mechanisms of the exertion of power.

Jerusalém has been selected for the Portuguese edition of “1001 books to read before dying – a chronological guide to the most important novels of all times”. The novel appears alongside works by Philip Roth and John Banville.

Quotes

Jerusalém

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Matteo Lost His Job

In his novel Matteo Lost His Job (“Matteo Perdeu o Emprego”), Tavares explores the course of his protagonist’s destiny. Matteo answers an advertisement for a job and the woman who interviews him has a peculiar characteristic: she has no arms. His duty will be to accompany her and do everything that she cannot do. He takes the job because it is the first offer he’s received in several months, but he doesn’t like it and leaves it. He spends a few more months unemployed until he responds to a new ad. The man he meets has no arms.

Quotes

Matteo Lost His Job

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Stories by Mister Valéry

In The Shoes. Stories by Mister Valéry (“Os Sapatos. Histórias do Senhor Valéry”) Mr. Valéry walks in the street with a white shoe on his left foot and a black shoe on his right foot. Sometimes it’s the other way around. But he is never wrong. He gets irritated when people tell him that he has mixed up his shoes. He then switches his shoes, but receives the same reaction. He gets even more irritated. According to his logic, one of these two situations has to be right for the other to be wrong, since they are inverse. He decides he is indifferent to the subject, because if they say both situations are wrong, it is because they are both right. In this unusual work for children, Gonçalo M. Tavares explores the limits of logic and philosophical principles in a creative and entertaining way.

For Mr. Valéry, holidays are the times when no one can require you to make decisions. The difficult thing is to find the ideal house where he can rest. In an attempt to discover the best place, in The Holiday House. Stories by Mister Valéry (“A Casa de Férias. Histórias do Senhor Valéry”) Mr. Valéry imagines different houses, which by their specific but always unusual structure can offer him the rest he deserves. However, his imagination does not stop working and surprises us with ever more incredible propositions, revealing his extraordinary power.

In The Friends. Stories by Mister Valéry (“Os Amigos. Histórias do Senhor Valéry”), Mr. Valéry is small but jumps a lot, so he explains that he is “like tall people but only for a short time.” But “if tall people jumped, he would never reach them vertically” and, persistent in his learning, he abandons the exercise and begins new experiments: first a bench, then a bench with wheels, even thinking about how to “freeze a jump”. “When concentrating, Mr Valéry could actually see the tops of the heads of people who were much taller than him,” but with the vision from above “he had difficulty remembering the faces of the people he met. “With height, Mr. Valéry lost friends.”So finally he decides to be tall only in his head.

In The Two Sides. Stories by Mister Valéry (“Os Dois Lados. Histórias do Senhor Valéry”), Mr Valéry has a problem to solve: how to always be on the right side of the world? Mr Valéry’s dilemma calls for rules, and his steps in seeking this knowledge show us the absurdity of a mental system, touching us in our awareness of the absurdities that we all, at some point, raise.

Developing the theory that the world has two sides, “the right and the left,” Mr Valéry implements a disciplined and rigorous methodology: he divides his house into two parts and “only touches the things that were on his left with the left hand and the things on his right hand with his right hand”. Furthermore, in order never to deceive himself in rigorously always using the “right” hand, even when lying on his back, he painted “the whole left side of the house, including every object, in blue” and the other side in red. But so as to make no mistake, Mr. Valéry had another great trick: his left hand was also painted blue and his right hand red.

AWARDS

INTERNATIONAL AWARDS
Formentor Prize for Literature 2026 (Spain)
Prix Laure Bataillon 2021 (France, French translation of The Neighbourhood)
Bellas Artes Prize for the Best Translation MARGARITA MICHELENA 2019 (Mexico, with A Girl is Lost in Her Century Looking for Her Father)
University of Lisbon Prize 2019 (for his body of work)
Prémio Roménia – Literatura Sem Fronteiras 2018 (for his body of work)
Vergílio Ferreira Prize 2017 (Portugal)
Prémio Tabula Rasa 2015 (Portugal, with A Girl Is Lost in Her Century Looking for Her Father)
Radoje Tatić Translation Award 2014 (Croatia, with Histórias falsas)
Prix Littéraire Européen 2011, Étudiants Francophones (France, with Mr Kraus and Politics)
Special Price of the Jury of the Grand Prix Littéraire du Web Cultura 2010 (France)
Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger 2010 (France); This award has already been given to authors like Salmon Rushdie, Elias Canetti, Robert Musil, Orhan Pamuk, John Updike, Philip Roth, Gabriel García Márquez and Colm Tóibín, among others.
Belgrad Poetry Award 2009 (Serbia)
International Prize of Triest 2008 (Italy)
Prêmio Portugal Telecom 2007 (Brazil)

AWARDS FOR HIS NOVEL JERUSALÉM
Prêmio Portugal Telecom de Literatura em Língua Portuguesa 2007
Prêmio José Saramago 2005
Prêmio LER/Millennium BCP 2004

AWARDS FOR ÁGUA, CÃO, CAVALO, CABEÇA
Grande Prêmio de Conto da Associação Portuguesa de Escritores “Camilo Castelo Branco” 2007

AWARDS FOR A VOYAGE TO INDIA
Prémio Fundação Inês de Castro 2012
Prémio Literário Fernando Namora 2011
Grande Prêmio Romance e Novela da Associação Portuguesa de Autores 2011
Prémio Portugal Telecom de Literatura 2011
Prêmio Especial de Imprensa Melhor Livro 2010 Ler/Booktailors
SPA Author’s Prize 2010

NOMINATED FOR
Prix Jean Monnet de Littérature Européenne (2019, with A Girl Is Lost in Her Century Looking for Her Father)
Shortlisted for the Prémio Oceanos (2016, with A Girl Is Lost in Her Century Looking for Her Father)
Prix Femina (2016, France, with Matteo Lost His Job)
Pen Award for Novel, Portuguese Pen Club (2015, A Girl Is Lost in Her Century Looking for Her Father)
Prix Jean-Monnet de Littérature Européenne (2015, France, with Klaus Klump: A Man and Joseph Walser’s Machine)
International IMPAC Dublin award (2013, Ireland, with Learning to Pray in the Age of Technology)
Longlist of the Best Translated Book Award Fiction (2013, USA, with Joseph Walser’s Machine)
Europese Literatuurprijs (2013, Netherlands, with Learning to Pray in the Age of Technology)
Prix Médicis Étranger (2012, France, with A Voyage to India)
Prix Médicis Étranger (2010, France, with Learning to Pray in the Age of Technology)
Prix Femina (2010, France, with Learning to Pray in the Age of Technology)
Prix Cévennes (2009, France, with Jerusalém, award for the Best European Novel)

RIGHTS

NOVELS
The End of the United States of America. An Epic
(”O Fim dos Estados Unidos da América. Epopeia“)
Lisbon: Relógio d’Água 2025, 1002 p.
Brazil: Dublinense ·  Egypt: Masr El Arab · France: VH Editions (Viviane Hamy) · Poland: Wydawnictwo Literackie · Spain:  Seix Barral (Planeta)

The Middle Bone (”O Osso do Meio“)
Lisbon: Relógio d’Água 2020, 132 p.
Egypt: Masr El Arab 2021 · France: Viviane Hamy 2024 · Romania: Casa Cărții de Știință · USA: Dalkey Archive Press

A Girl Is Lost in Her Century, Looking for Her Father (”Uma Menina Está Perdida no seu Século à Procura do Pai“)
Porto: Porto Editora 2014, 200 p.
Argentina: Letranómada 2015 · Brazil: Companhia das Letras 2015 · France: Viviane Hamy 2018 · Lebanon: Dar al Rafidain · Mexico: Almadía 2018 · Poland: Wydawnictwo Literackie 2022 · Spain: Seix Barral 2016 · Turkey: Kirmizi Kedi 2022 · USA: Dalkey Archive Press 2025

Old People Want to Live Too (“Os Velhos Também Querem Viver”)
Lisbon: Caminho 2014, 96 p.
Brazil: Foz 2015 · Canada: Guernica Editions · Iraq: Layeth Alhjan Hamad· Peru: Animal de Invierno

A Voyage to India (”Uma Viagem à Índia“)
Lisbon: Caminho 2010; Relógio d’Água 2026, 520 p.
Voted among the Best Books of the Year 2014 by El País and ABC Cultural
Argentina: Letranómada 2014 · Brazil: Leya 2010 · Bulgaria: Colibri 2016 · Catalan: Periscopi 2013 · Croatia: Vukovic & Runjic 2018 · France: Viviane Hamy 2012, 2022 · Mexico: Almadía · Romania: Univers 2014 · Spain: Seix Barral 2014, 5th edition 2018, 6th ed. 2019 · USA: Dalkey Archive 2016

Matteo Lost His Job (”Matteo Perdeu o Emprego“)
Porto: Porto Editora 2010, 210 p.
Brazil: Foz 2013 · Bulgaria: Ergo Publishing House 2021 · France: Viviane Hamy 2016 · Italy: Nottetempo 2016 · Kuwait: Alsurra 2019 · Peru: Animal de Invierno 2018 · Spain: Seix Barral 2023 · Sweden: Tranan 2018

Tetralogy “The Kingdom” (“O Reino”)
Learning to Pray in the Age of Technology (“Aprender a Rezar na Era da Técnica”)
Lisbon: Caminho 2007; Relógio d’Água 2021, 2026, 376 p. 
Argentina: Letranómada 2013 · Armenia: New Mag ·  Brazil: Companhia das Letras 2008 · Bulgaria: Five Plus · Colombia: Uniandes · Egypt: Masr El-Arabia 2019 · France: Viviane Hamy 2010 · Hungary: L’ Harmattan 2013 · India: Falcon Books · Italy: Feltrinelli 2011 · Macedonia: Dooel · Mexico: Almadía 2013 · Poland: Wydawnictwa Literackie 2015 · Romania: Vivaldi 2011 · Serbia: Treci Trg · Slovenia: Modrijan 2009 · Spain: Mondadori 2012, Seix Barral 2018 · The Netherlands: Querido 2012 · Turkey: Kirmizi Kedi 2017 · USA: Dalkey Archive Press 2011

Jerusalém
Lisbon: Círculo de Leitores 2004; Caminho 2005; Relógio d’Água 2021, 256 p.
Albania: Fjala 2016 · Argentina: Letranómada 2010 · Armenia: Vernatun Pubslihing· Brazil: Companhia das Letras 2006, pb 2017 · Bulgaria: Five Plus 2009 · Catalan: El Gall 2018 · Colombia: Uniandes · Croatia: Sysprint 2009 · Czech Republic: Studio Rubato 2025 · Denmark: Aurora Boreal 2021 · Egypt: Masr El-Arabi 2016 · Estonia: Ilmamaa 2014 · France: Viviane Hamy 2008, pb 2012 · Galician: Rinoceronte 2024 · Germany: DVA 2012 · Greece: Kastaniotis 2012 · Hungary: Nagyvilág 2008 · Iceland: Una útgáfuhús 2023 · Israel: Kinneret 2009 · Italy: Guanda 2006 (avail.) · Japan: Kawade Shobo 2021 · Korea: Open Books 2011 · Latvia: Janis Roze 2024 · Lithuania: Lithuanian Writer’s Union · Macedonia: Blesok 2013 · Mexico: Almadía 2009 · Poland: Swiat 2010 · Romania: Humanitas 2008 · Serbia/Montenegro: Treći Trg 2009 · Slovenia: Modrijan Zalozba 2008 · Spain: Mondadori 2009, Seix Barral 2018 · Sri Lanka: GoodReads ·  Sweden: Lusima 2009 · The Netherlands: Querido 2011 · Turkey: Kirmizi Kedi 2012 · USA: Dalkey Archive Press 2009

Klaus Klump: A Man (“Um Homem: Klaus Klump“)
Lisbon: Caminho 2003, 2004, 2008 (Machine + Klaus Klump), 136 p.; Círculo de Leitores 2006; Relógio d’Água 2024, 132 p.
Shortlisted for the Prix Jean-Monnet de Littérature Européenne 2015
Voted among the Best Books of the Year 2014 by the English literary magazine Gorse
Brazil: Companhia das Letras 2007 · Bulgaria: Five Plus 2010 · Colombia: Uniandes 2017 · Croatia: Vukovic & Runjic (Machine + Klaus Klump) 2017 · Egypt: Masr El Arabia · France: Viviane Hamy 2014 (Machine + Klaus Klump) · Indonesia: Yayasan Pustaka Obor 2019 · Romania: Paralela45 2018 · Serbia: Treci Trg 2011 (Machine + Klaus Klump) · Slovakia: Portugalsky Institute · Spain: Mondadori 2006, Seix Barral 2018 · Turkey: Kirmizi Kedi (Machine + Klaus Klump) 2016 · USA: Dalkey Archive 2014

Joseph Walser’s Machine (“A Máquina de Joseph Walser”)
Lisbon: Caminho 2003, 2004, 2008 (Machine + Klaus Klump), 168 p.; Círculo de Leitores 2006; Relógio d’Água 2023, 192 p.
Shortlisted for the Prix Jean-Monnet de Littérature Européenne 2015
Brazil: Companhia das Letras 2010 · Bulgaria: Five Plus 2011 · Colombia: Uniandes 2017 · Croatia: Vukovic & Runjic (Machine + Klaus Klump) 2017 · Egypt: Masr El Arabia · France: Viviane Hamy 2014 (Machine + Klaus Klump) · Germany: DVA 2014 · Paraguay: Ediciones de la Ura · Romania: Paralela45 2018 · Serbia: Treci Trg 2011 (Machine + Klaus Klump) · Spain: Mondadori 2007, Seix Barral 2018 · Turkey: Kirmizi Kedi (Machine + Klaus Klump) 2016 · USA: Dalkey Archive 2012

O Bairro (The Neighbourhood):
Voted among the Best Books of the Year 2014 in Argentina

Mr Valéry and Logic (“O Senhor Valéry e a Lógica”)
Lisbon: Caminho 2002, 80 p.
Prix Laure Bataillon 2021 for the best book translated in France
Argentina: Interzona · Belgium: Orfeu · Brazil: Escritos 2004, Casa da Palavra 2011, Editora Nós · Bulgaria: Ergo Books 2020 · China: Shanghai 99 2016 · Costa Rica: Editorial Costa Rica 2016 · Croatia: Sysprint 2008 · Czech Republic: SMRST 2011 · Dominican Republic: UME · France: Viviane Hamy 2008, 2020 · German: Korrespondenzen 2020 · Greece: Kastaniotis 2016 · Guatemala: Catafixia · India: Transbooks 2005 (English for India only) · Italy: Guanda 2005, Nottetempo 2014, Noi Edizioni · Korea: Open Books · Kuwait: Alsurra 2018 · Macedonia: Begemot 2020 · Mexico: Almadía 2012 · Morocco: Racines 2011 · Poland: Bertelsmann Media 2007 · Romania: Allfa · Russia: Alexandria; Liberty Books, forthcoming 2026 · Serbia: Treci Trg 2011 · Slovakia: Portugalsky Institute 2017 · Slovenia: Beletrina 2008 · Spain: Mondadori 2006, Seix Baral 2015, 2019, 2022 · Sweden: Tranan 2012 · Switzerland: La Joie de Lire 2003 (French) · Turkey: Kirmizi Kedi 2014 · USA: Texas Tech University Press 2012

Mr Henri and the Encyclopaedia (“O Senhor Henri e a Enciclopédia”)
Lisbon: Caminho 2003, 95 p.
Argentina: Interzona 2012 · Belgium: Orfeu · Brazil: Escritos 2004, Casa da Palavra 2011, Editora Nós · Bulgaria: Ergo Books 2020 · China: Shanghai 99 2016 · Costa Rica: Editorial Costa Rica 2016 · Croatia: Sysprint 2008 · Dominican Republic: UME · France: Viviane Hamy 2020 · German: Korrespondenzen 2020 · Greece: Kastaniotis 2016 · Guatemala: Catafixia · India: Transbooks 2005 (English for India only) · Italy: Noi Edizioni · Korea: Open Books 2015 · Kuwait: Alsurra 2018 · Macedonia: Begemot 2020 · Mexico: Almadía 2012 · Poland: Bertelsmann Media 2007 · Romania: Allfa · Russia: Alexandria · Serbia: Treci Trg 2011 · Slovakia: Portugalsky Institute 2017 · Slovenia: Beletrina 2008 · Spain: Mondadori 2007, Seix Baral 2015, 2019, 2022 · Turkey: Kirmizi Kedi 2014 · USA: Texas Tech University Press 2012

Mr Brecht and Success (“O Senhor Brecht e o Sucesso”)
Lisbon: Caminho 2004; Relógio d’Água 2016, 72 p.
Argentina: Interzona 2012 ·  Belgium: Orfeu · Brazil: Casa da Palavra 2005, Editora Nós · Bulgaria: Ergo Books 2020 · China: Shanghai 99 2016 · Costa Rica: Editorial Costa Rica 2016, H & H (Creole)  · Croatia: Sysprint 2008 · Czech Republic: SMRST 2012 · Dominican Republic: UME · France: Viviane Hamy 2010, 2020 · German: Korrespondenzen 2020 · Greece: Kastaniotis 2016 · Guatemala: Catafixia · India: Transbooks 2006 (English for India only) · Italy: Noi Edizioni · Korea: Open Books 2015 · Macedonia: Begemot 2020 · Mexico: Almadía 2012 · Poland: Bertelsmann Media 2007 · Romania: Allfa · Russia: Alexandria; Liberty Books, forthcoming 2026 · Serbia: Treci Trg 2011 · Slovakia: Portugalsky Institute 2018 · Slovenia: Beletrina 2008 · Spain: Mondadori 2007, Seix Baral 2015, 2019, 2022 · Sweden: Tranan 2012 · Turkey: Kirmizi Kedi 2014

Mr Juarroz and Thought (”O Senhor Juarroz e o Pensamento“)
Lisbon: Caminho 2004, 88 p.
Argentina: Interzona 2012 ·  Belgium: Orfeu · Brazil: Casa da Palavra 2006, Editora Nós · Bulgaria: Ergo Books 2020 · Costa Rica: Editorial Costa Rica 2016 · Croatia: Sysprint 2008 · Dominican Republic: UME · France: Viviane Hamy 2020 · German: Korrespondenzen 2020 · Greece: Kastaniotis 2016 · Guatemala: Catafixia · India: Transbooks 2007 (English for India only) · Italy: Noi Edizioni · Korea: Open Books 2015 · Kuwait: Alsurra 2018 · Macedonia: Begemot 2020 · Mexico: Almadía 2012 · Poland: Bertelsmann Media 2007 · Romania: Allfa · Russia: Alexandria; Liberty Books, forthcoming 2026 · Serbia: Treci Trg 2011 · Slovakia: Portugalsky Institute 2017 · Slovenia: Beletrina 2008 · Spain: Seix Baral 2015, 2019, 2022 · Sweden: Tranan 2012 · Turkey: Kirmizi Kedi 2014 · USA: Texas Tech University Press 2012

Mr Calvin and the Promenade (“O Senhor Calvino e o Passeio”)
Lisbon: Caminho 2005, 71 p.
Argentina: Interzona · Belgium: Orfeu · Brazil: Casa da Palavra 2006, Editora Nós · Bulgaria: Ergo Books 2020 · China: Shanghai 99 2016 · Costa Rica: Editorial Costa Rica 2016 · Croatia: Sysprint 2008 · Dominican Republic: UME · France: Viviane Hamy 2009, 2020 · German: Korrespondenzen 2022 · Greece: Kastaniotis 2016 · Guatemala: Catafixia · India: Transbooks 2007 (English for India only) · Italy: Guanda 2007, Nottetempo 2014, Noi Edizioni · Korea: Open Books · Kuwait: Alsurra 2018 · Macedonia: Begemot 2020 · Mexico: Almadía 2012 · Poland: Bertelsmann Media 2007 · Romania: Allfa · Russia: Alexandria; Liberty Books, forthcoming 2026 · Serbia: Treci Trg 2011 · Slovakia: Portugalsky Institute 2018 · Slovenia: Beletrina 2008 · Spain: Seix Baral 2015, 2019, 2022 · Sweden: Tranan 2012 · Turkey: Kirmizi Kedi 2014 · USA: Texas Tech University Press 2012

Mr Kraus and Politics (“O Senhor Kraus e a Política”)
Lisbon: Caminho 2005, 116 p.
Argentina: Interzona · Belgium: Orfeu · Brazil: Casa da Palavra 2006, Editora Nós · Bulgaria: Ergo Books 2020 · Costa Rica: Editorial Costa Rica 2016 · Croatia: Sysprint 2008 · Czech Republic: SMRST 2012 · Dominican Republic: UME · France: Viviane Hamy 2009, 2020 · German: Korrespondenzen 2021 · Greece: Kastaniotis 2016 · Guatemala: Catafixia · India: Transbooks 2008 (English for India only) · Italy: Nottetempo 2014, Noi Edizioni · Korea: Open Books · Kuwait: Alsurra 2018 · Macedonia: Begemot 2020 · Mexico: Almadía 2012 · Poland: Bertelsmann Media 2007 · Romania: Allfa · Serbia: Treci Trg 2011 · Slovakia: Portugalsky Institute 2018  · Slovenia: Beletrina 2008 · Spain: Seix Baral 2015, 2019, 2022 · USA: Texas Tech University Press 2012 · Venezuela: Madera Fina

Mr Walser and the Forest (“O Senhor Walser e a Floresta”)
Lisbon: Caminho 2006; Relógio d’Água 2016, 56 p.
Argentina: Interzona · Belgium: Orfeu · Brazil: Casa da Palavra 2008, Editora Nós · Bulgaria: Ergo Books 2020 · Costa Rica: Editorial Costa Rica 2016 · Croatia: Sysprint 2008 · Dominican Republic: UME · France: Viviane Hamy 2011, 2020 · Germany: Korrespondenzen 2023 · Greece: Kastaniotis 2016 · Guatemala: Catafixia · Italy: Nottetempo 2014, Noi Edizioni · Korea: Open Books · Kuwait: Alsurra 2018 · Macedonia: Begemot 2020 · Mexico: Almadía 2012 · Romania: Allfa · Russia: Alexandria; Liberty Books, forthcoming 2026 · Serbia: Treci Trg 2011 · Slovakia: Portugalsky Institute 2018 · Slovenia: Beletrina 2008 · Spain: Seix Baral 2015, 2019, 2022 · Turkey: Kirmizi Kedi 2014 · USA: Texas Tech University Press 2012 · Venezuela: Madera Fina

Mr Breton and the Interview (“O Senhor Breton e a Entrevista”)
Lisbon: Caminho 2008, 56 p.
Argentina: Interzona · Belgium: Orfeu · Brazil: Casa da Palavra 2009, Editora Nós · Bulgaria: Ergo Books 2020 · Costa Rica: Editorial Costa Rica 2016 · Dominican Republic: UME · France: Viviane Hamy 2008, 2020 · German: Korrespondenzen 2024 · Greece: Kastaniotis 2016 · Guatemala: Catafixia · Italy: Urogallo 2023 · Korea: Open Books · Macedonia: Begemot 2020 · Mexico: Almadía 2012 · Romania: Allfa · Russia: Alexandria · Serbia: Treci Trg 2011 · Slovakia: Portugalsky Institute 2018 · Spain: Témenos (Catalan), Seix Baral 2015; 2019; 2022 · Venezuela: Madera Fina

Mr Swedenborg and the Geometrical Investigations (“O Senhor Swedenborg e as investigações geométricas”)
Lisbon: Caminho 2009; Relógio d’Água 2024, 120 p.
Argentina: Interzona 2012 · Belgium: Orfeu · Brazil: Casa da Palavra 2011, Editora Nós · Bulgaria: Ergo Books 2020 · Costa Rica: Editorial Costa Rica 2016 · Dominican Republic: UME · France: Viviane Hamy 2014, 2022 · German: Korrespondenzen 2025 · Greece: Kastaniotis 2016 · Guatemala: Catafixia · Italy: Noi Edizioni ·  Korea: Open Books 2015 · Macedonia: Begemot 2020 · Mexico: Almadía 2012 · Romania: Allfa · Serbia: Treci Trg 2011 · Slovakia: Portugalsky Institute 2018 · Spain: Seix Baral 2015, 2019, 2022 · Sweden: Tranan 2012 · Venezuela: Madera Fina

Mr Eliot and the Conferences (“O Senhor Eliot e as Conferências”)
Lisbon: Caminho 2010, 74 p.
Argentina: Interzona 2012 · Belgium: Orfeu · Brazil: Casa da Palavra 2011, Editora Nós · Bulgaria: Ergo Books 2020 · Costa Rica: Editorial Costa Rica 2016 · Dominican Republic: UME · France: Viviane Hamy 2015 · German: Korrespondenzen 2026 · Greece: Kastaniotis 2016 · Guatemala: Catafixia · Italy: Noi Edizioni · Korea: Open Books 2015 · Macedonia: Begemot 2020 · Mexico: Almadía 2012 · Romania: Allfa · Serbia: Treci Trg 2011 · Slovakia: Portugalsky Institute 2018 · Spain: Seix Baral 2015, 2019, 2022 · Sweden: Tranan 2012 · Venezuela: Madera Fina

Fragmented History of the World (“História Fragmentada do Mundo”)
Mussolini’s Boots (“As Botas de Mussolini”)
Lisbon: Relógio D’Água 2023, 72 p.
Spain: Editorial Difácil

DIARY-FICTION (DIÁRIO FICÇÃO)
In America, Said Jonathan (“Na América, Disse Jonathan”)
Lisbon: Relógio d’Água 2019, 112 p.
Egypt: Masr El Arabia (worldwide) · Germany: Kupido Literaturverlag 2021 

MYTHOLOGIES (MITOLOGIAS)
The Devil (”O Diabo“)
Lisbon: Bertrand 2022, 200 p.
Brazil: Dublinense 2025 · Egypt: Masr El Arabia (worldwide) · Peru: La Gran Sinergia

Five Children, Five Rats (”Cinco Meninos, Cinco Ratos“)
Lisbon: Bertand 2018, 228 p.
Brazil: Dublinense, 2019 · Egypt: Masr El Arabia (worldwide) · France: Viviane Hamy 2022

The Woman-Without-a-Head and the Man-With-the-Evil-Eye (”A Mulher Sem Cabeça e o Homem do Mau-Olhado“)
Lisbon: Bertrand 2017, 152 p.
Extract published at Granta, UK
Brazil: Dublinense 2019 · Egypt: Masr El-Arabia 2018 · France: Viviane Hamy 2022

DIARY
Plague Diary (“Diário da Peste”)
Lisbon: Relógio D’Água 2021, 312 p.
Complete English translation available
Argentina: Interzona 2020 · Brasil: Nós · Bulgaria: Ergo Publishing 2022 · Canada/USA: Quattro Books · France: Bouquins 2022· Greece: Kastaniotis 2021 · Italy: Noi · Moldova (Romanian): Cartier 2022 ·  Spain: Días Contados (only in Spain) 2022

DIALOGUE FICTION
His Excellency, The Circumlucologist (“O Torcicologologista, Excelência”)
Lisbon: Caminho 2015, 304 p.
Brazil: Dublinense 2017

ESSAYS
The Stone and the Drawing (“A Pedra e o Desenho”)
Lisbon: Relogio D´Agua 2022, 80 p.
Spain: La Umbría y la Solana

Atlas of the Body and the Imagination (“Atlas do Corpo e da Imaginação”)
Lisbon: Caminho 2013; Relógio d’Água 2019, 536 p.
Italy: Nova Delphi · Mexico: Matadero 2018 · Brazil: Dublinense 2021

ENCICLOPÉDIA (ESSAY-FICTION)
Short Notes on the Orient (“Breves Notas Sobre o Oriente”)
Lisbon: Relógio D’Água 2023, 104 p.

Dictionary of Artists (“Dicionário de Artistas”)
Lisbon: Relógio D’Água 2021, 136 p.
Brazil: Dublinense 2023 · Spain: La Umbría y la Solana

Short Notes on Literature-Bloom (“Breves Notas sobre a Literatura-Bloom”)
Lisbon: Relógio d’Água 2016, 96 p.
Argentina: Letranómada · Chile: Puntángeles · Costa Rica: Encino · Italy: Urogallo 2023 · Mexico: Matadero 2018 · Poland: Wydawnictwo slowo 2018 · Romania: Scoala Ardeleana · Spain: Xordica · Spain (Catalan): Edicions del Periscopi 2016 · Uruguay: HUM · USA: Quantum Prose 2019

Short Notes on Music (“Breves Notas sobre a Música”)
Lisbon: Relógio d’Água 2015, 120 p.
Argentina: Letranómada · Chile: Puntángeles · Costa Rica: Encino · Italy: Urogallo 2023 · Mexico: Matadero 2018 · Poland: Wydawnictwo slowo 2018 · Romania: Scoala Ardeleana · Spain: Xordica · Spain (Catalan): Edicions del Periscopi· Uruguay: HUM· USA: Quantum Prose 2019

Short Notes on Connections (Llansol, Molder, and Zambrano) (“Breves Notas sobre as Ligações (Llansol, Molder e Zambrano)”)
Lisbon: Relógio d’Água 2009, 96 p.
Argentina: Letranómada 2010 · Brazil: Design 2009 · Chile: Puntángeles · Costa Rica: Encino · Colombia: Uniandes 2016 · Ecuador: Paradiso · Italy: Urogallo 2023 · Mexico: Aldus 2010 · Peru: Colmena · Poland: Wydawnictwo slowo 2018 · Romania: Scoala Ardeleana · Spain: Regional de Extremadura 2010, Xordica · Uruguay: HUM· USA: Quantum Prose 2019

Short Notes on Fear (“Breves Notas sobre o Medo”)
Lisbon: Relógio d’Água 2007, 69 p.
Argentina: Letranómada · Brazil: Design 2009 · Chile: Puntángeles · Colombia: Uniandes 2016 · Costa Rica: Encino · Ecuador: Paradiso · Italy: Urogallo 2023 · Mexico: Aldus 2010 · Peru: Colmena · Poland: Wydawnictwo slowo 2018 · Romania: Scoala Ardeleana · Spain: Regional de Extremadura 2010, Xordica · Uruguay: HUM· USA: Quantum Prose 2019

Short Notes on Science (“Breves Notas sobre a Ciência”)
Lisbon: Relógio d’Água 2006, 145 p.
English translation available at asymptotejournal.com
Argentina: Letranómada · Brazil: Design 2009 · Costa Rica: Encino · Colombia: Uniandes 2016 · Ecuador: Paradiso · Italy: Urogallo 2023 · Mexico: Aldus 2010 · Peru: Colmena · Poland: Wydawnictwo slowo 2018 · Romania: Scoala Ardeleana · Spain: Regional de Extremadura 2010, Xordica · Uruguay: HUM· USA: Quantum Prose 2019

BLOOM BOOKS
The Left Leg of Paris Followed by Roland Barthes and Robert Musil (“A Perna Esquerda de Paris Seguido de Roland Barthes e Robert Musil”)
Lisbon: Relógio d’ Água 2004, 166 p.
Brazil: Lumme · Chile: Alquimia

THEATRE
The Man is either Silly or a Woman (“O Homem ou É Tonto ou É Mulher”)
Porto: Campo das Letras 2003, 76 p.
Brazil: Casa da Palavra 2005

Samuel Beckett’s Spoon and other Texts (“A Colher de Samuel Beckett e outros Textos”)
Porto: Campo das Letras 2002, 82 p.
Brazil: Arte & Letra

SONGS (CANÇÕES)
Água, Cão, Cavalo, Cabeça
Lisbon: Caminho 2006, 91 p.
Argentina: Letranómada 2008 · Austria/Germany: Verlag der Apfel 2008 · Italy: Il Filo 2009 · Mexico: Almadía 2009 · Romania: Scoala Ardealeana 2021 (in the anthology “Cântece”) · Spain: Xordica 2010

Mexican Songs (“Canções Mexicanas”)
Lisbon: Relógio d’Água 2011, 96 p.
Brazil: Casa da Palavra 2013 · Mexico: Almadía 2013 · Puerto Rico: Trabalis 2016 · Romania: Scoala Ardealeana 2021 (in the anthology “Cântece”)

Animalistic (“Animalescos”)
Lisbon: Relógio d’Água 2013, 144 p.
Bolivia: El Cuervo 2021 · Brazil: Dublinense 2015, 2019 · Costa Rico: H&H · Romania: Scoala Ardealeana 2021 (in the anthology “Cântece”) · Spain: Kriller 71

STORIES
False Stories (“Histórias Falsas”)
Lisbon: Campo das Letras 2005, Caminho 2014, 96 p.
Argentina: Letranómada 2008 · Brazil: Casa da Palavra 2008 · Catalonia: El Gall 2015· Colombia: El Pelegrino · Cuba: Feria del Libro de la Habana 2014 · Ecuador: Paradiso 2013 · El Salvador: Los Sin Pisto 2022 · Honduras: Mimalapalabra 2022· Italy: Urogallo 2020 · Lebanon: Dar al Rafidain · Mexico: Almadía 2008 · Serbia: Treci Trg 2014 · Spain: Xordica 2008

SHORT PROSE
Bucareste-Budapeste: Budapeste-Bucareste
Lisbon: Relógio D’Água, 2019, 108 p.
Brazil: Oficina Raquel 2022 · Romania: Casa Cărţii de Ştiinţă 2024 · Spain: Nordica Libros (Spanish only in Spain) 2022

Short Movies
Lisbon: Caminho 2011, 160 p.
Argentina: Interzona · Brazil: Dublinense 2015

Library (“Biblioteca”)
Porto: Campo das Letras 2004, 190 p.
Argentina: Letranómada 2009 · Brazil: Casa da Palavra 2009 · Spain: Xordica (Spanish only in Spain) 2007

PARTICIPATION IN ANTHOLOGIES
Europe City: Lessons from the European Prize for Urban Public Space
Epilogue by Zygmunt Baumann
Spain: Lars Müller 2015

Best European Fiction 2011
USA: Dalkey Archive Press 2010

POETRY
Geometrical Investigations (“Investigações Geométricas”)
Lisbon: Fundação Ciência e Desenvolvimento 2005, 151 p.

1 (Poetry) (“1 (Poesia)”)
Lisbon: Relógio d’Água 2004
Belgium: Atlas 2003 (anthology) · Brazil: Bertrand 2005 · Italy: Franco Puzzo 2008 · Luxembourg: CLAE/25A 2011 · Serbia: Treci Trg 2011 · Spain: Luces de Galibo 2012

Book of Dance (“Livro da Dança”)
Lisbon: Assírio & Alvim 2001, 137 p.
Argentina: Zindo & Gafuri 2017 · Brazil: Design 2008 · Hungary: Typotex 2019 · Spain: Kriller 71 2015

FOR YOUNG READERS
The Shoes. Stories by Mister Valéry (“Os Sapatos. Histórias do Senhor Valéry”)
Lisbon: Caminho 2009, 32 p.
Brazil: Realejo · Hungary: Typotex 2019

The Holiday House. Stories by Mister Valéry (“A Casa de Férias. Histórias do Senhor Valéry”)
Lisbon: Caminho 2008, 32 p.
Brazil: Realejo

The Two Sides. Stories by Mister Valéry (“Os Dois Lados. Histórias do Senhor Valéry”)
Lisbon: Caminho 2007, 25 p.
Brazil: Realejo

The Friends. Stories by Mister Valéry (“Os Amigos. Histórias do Senhor Valéry”)
Lisbon: Caminho 2007, 25 p.
Brazil: Realejo · Mexico: Ediciones SM 2014 · Panama: Piggy Press · Palestine: Palestina Writing · Spain: Onanda (Catalan)

]]> Miguel Torga https://mertinwitt-litag.de/portfolio-items/miguel-torga/ Thu, 29 Oct 2020 20:07:53 +0000 https://mertinwitt-litag.de/?post_type=avada_portfolio&p=15290

Miguel Torga

(1907 – 1995)
Portugal

Miguel Torga (1907-1995) is regarded as one of Portugal’s most outstanding authors. For many he is also the most important poet since Fernando Pessoa. Born Adolfo Correia da Rocha in 1907 in São Martinho da Anta, a village in Portugal’s poorest region – Trás-os-Montes – his life as the son of a small farmer was not always easy. At the age of thirteen he had to go to Brazil to work on his uncle’s farm. He returned to Portugal at the age of twenty-two and began to study Medicine in Coimbra.

Miguel Torga© Estate of Miguel Torga

//

About the Author

Despite his obligations as a writer, he never abandoned his profession as a doctor and always felt closest to the simple people from the region where he was born. He encouraged resistance to dictatorship and fascism not just in theory; he even suffered imprisonment for his convictions. Only seldom did Torga interrupt his secluded life in the university city of Coimbra to make public appearances. He was awarded numerous national and international prizes for his multifaceted and comprehensive oeuvre. He published a total of 40 volumes: novels, short-stories, plays, poetry and diaries. Miguel Torga’s oeuvre exudes the scent of earth, reveals a dominant love for concrete things, and portrays the simple people of northern Portugal, whose mysteries and myth gain entry intothe author’s lyrical and narrative work. Torga’s deliberately archaic style possesses the vividness and originality of the language of the farmers of northern Portugal. In its conciseness, his prose mirrors the ruggedness of their rural homeland.

Represented for Dom Quixote, Portugal.

RIGHTS

Torga’s work is now being published by Publicações Dom Quixote, Lisbon.
Please ask for detailed information concerning the rights sold abroad.

A criação do mundo, 1937-1981, 560 p.

Bichos, 1940, 128 p.

Diários, 1941-1990, 368 p.

Rua, 1942, 191 p.

O senhor Ventura, 1943, 115 p.

Novos contos da montanha, 1944, 327 p.
Selected among 10 of the best books set in Portugal by The Guardian, 2020

Vindima, 1945, 344 p.

Portugal, 1950

Pedras lavradas, 1951, 199 p.

Traço de união, 1956, 159 p.

Contos da montanha, 1962, 227 p.

Poemas ibéricos, 1966, 80 p.

PARTICIPATION IN ANTHOLOGIES
Ah, ein Herz, verstehe. Gedichte von Heilenden und Kranken.
(Ed. Jakob Leiner)
(“Ressurreição”, “Requiem por Mim”, Poesia Completa Vol. I-II, 2007)
Germany: Quintus Verlag 2024

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