Learning from Stone / A Educação pela Pedra

João Cabral de Melo Neto

22 June, 2016  •  248 words  •  Translations

Learning from stone, lesson one:
To see what stone means, live with it. … more»

Futebol: The Brazilian Variations

1 February 2002  •  1,113 words  •  Reportage & Criticism

In the arts of performance – in music and dance, in ecstatic religion, in soap opera, plastic surgery, cross-dressing and, perhaps above all, in football – Brazilian… more»

An atheist who saw miracles

31 July 1998  •  6,547 words  •  Reportage & Criticism

In 1997 I received an irresistible summons from Rio de Janeiro. A Rio samba school, União da Ilha do Governador, one of fourteen in the… more»

Erotic engineering in Brazil

9 March 1998  •  1,053 words  •  City of Words

A Ru Paul lookalike in a lace microskirt is plying her trade on the Avenida Augusto Severo in downtown Rio de Janeiro. Very tall, with… more»

A view across the bay

November 1995  •  1,302 words  •  City of Words

At breakfast in the Hotel Anglo-Americano, a five-dollar-a-night hotel in Salvador da Bahia, the café con leche was thin and weak, the milk reconstituted from… more»

Sore losers in the sambadrome

2 March 1998  •  1,264 words  •  City of Words

It’s Ash Wednesday in Rio de Janeiro. Carnival is over. I’m watching TV in the kitchen with Peter and Zé Motta, channel-hopping between Globo and… more»

Miracles of the people

1988  •  5,988 words  •  Research

Candomblé, a religion of African origin widespread in Brazil, has for many years been the main focus of anthropological research into the African-derived religions of the new world. The analyses of the rituals and cosmology of the religion … more»

Fatumbi, The Island of All Saints / Fatumbi, A Ilha de Todos os Santos

Marco André, Almir da Ilha and Mauricio 100

22 June, 2016  •  340 words  •  Translations

Shine down on us, divine gift!
This child of destiny, in thrall to Ifá
Crossing the sea with our island … more»

Translating Caetano

2001  •  4,425 words  •  Reportage & Criticism

In the late 1980s I was living in Salvador da Bahia, the old capital of Brazil, studying Portuguese. I didn’t spend much time in class. There… more»

Dictation from the dead

22 April 1988  •  4,451 words  •  Reportage & Criticism

In São Paulo, on the first smog-free morning of spring, I was lingering by the news kiosks in the Praça da Republica – enigmatic cuboids of… more»