Before it dries

Winner of the 2015 SESC Literature Award in the Short Stories category. The twelve women portrayed in Marta Barcellos's short stories face a common impossibility: getting pregnant and living up to an idealized maternal figure. Marta weaves these stories together with effective language, at once poignant and delicate, inciting the reader, fascinating them, and guiding them through tales that revolve around the upper-middle class and its codes; the promise of happiness unfulfilled by consumer standards and appearances; the urgency and unease of living in a society of contrasts. Before it dries up, she surprises us with profound re-examinations of what the act of telling a story can be: inventive reinterpretations in a seemingly inexhaustible form.