Of passions and vampires

Of Passions and Vampires: A Story from the Time of the Age is the latest foray into prose by Ruy Espinheira Filho, whose most recent book of poetry, August Elegy and Other Poems, won the Brazilian Academy of Letters Prize in 2006 and took second place in the Jabuti Prize. It is a novel, in the author's words, "mnemonic," inspired by his youth spent in the rural towns of Bahia. With humor and lyricism, Ruy tells a story set in 1960—the time of the last presidential campaign before the military coup. Amidst a somewhat absurd and amusing scenario, the mysteries of love and the terror of rampant vampirism intertwine... For cartoonist Jaguar, "Ruy manages to do the most difficult thing in literature: write with simplicity about this incredibly complicated thing that is life. Very few have achieved this. Machado de Assis, for example. Ruy tells stories, so to speak, with exquisite simplicity. He writes for the reader. (...) Most writers I know write by looking at themselves." One of the most celebrated poets of his generation, Ruy Espinheira Filho proves with *Of Passions and Vampires: A Story from the Time of the Age* that his mastery of literary language is not limited to a single genre. "Generally, my prose also displays certain lyrical aspects," states Ruy, "but, as lyrical as it may be at times, it is still prose. In short, it is the other side of the same coin: literature."