Select

Selected - As bad as it may seem, it brings together the best short stories by Marcelino Freire - one of the most celebrated Brazilian writers of today - specially selected by the author.

Marcelino Freire is a rugged subject, a writer of passionate lyrics. He became one of the most important names in contemporary Brazilian literature by making his accented voice sound universal. The orality of his work is striking, echoing; more than hearing the written words, the reader is guided by a spoken cadence. There is rhythm in every sentence. The polyphony is so great and so well-conducted that it is as if Marcelino were a writer-maestro.

What we have here is truly mastery. Marcelino is a master. He writes masterfully. It's truly moving to read him. Each of his books. Having Marcelino's short stories gathered in a Selection allows us to see, and even hear, the solidity of his magnificent trajectory. It's as if the boy from the Northeast—who, when caught writing, would hear things like, "Where do you get that from? From your own mind? What the hell?!"—had built his own foundation of words.

This Selection - For worse than it seems - brings together short stories from his books Angu de sangue (Blood Angu ), BaléRalé ( Raffle Contos Negreiros) , Rasif (Rasif), Amar é Crime (Love is a crime) , and Bagageiro (Baggageiro ). The selection was made by the author himself, at the publisher's request. What, for Marcelino Freire, was a meticulous exercise in revisiting, for the reader is a summarized way of accessing great short stories by one of our greatest prose writers.