All prose II

Literary heir to Oswald de Andrade and Hilda Hilst, writer Márcia Denser became famous in the 1970s and 1980s after the publication of Diana Caçadora and Tango Fantasma. These two books earned her labels that she now considers "nonsense": dark muse of literature and favorite writer of Paulo Francis. But reducing her to these labels is unfair; after all, La Denser (as she became known) is considered one of the most important writers in contemporary Brazilian literature. Subversive politics, existential dramas, and virtual relationships are some of the themes of the novels and short stories collected in the anthology Toda prosa II. Everyday elements—streetscapes or celebrities, alcohol, music, advertising, nightlife, cinema, fashion labels, literature—showcase a unique writer, straddling the cursed and the most scathing pop, without neglecting the refinement of her poetic tone. In the book, two paradigmatic characters of Denser's reappear: Diana Marini, her alter ego, and Júlia, the protagonist of several of her short stories and also of her new novel, Caim, published in 2006 by Editora Record. But not only these; other characters populate the pages of the anthology, "inhabitants of the night and debauchery, not only of the excesses of alcohol and sex, but mainly of the soul," as Cristina Ferreira-Pinto Bailey explains in the afterword. "In a bittersweet text, in which irony serves a sensitive and insightful perspective, the author builds a very unique bridge that allows the reader to travel back and forth between the 70s, 80s, and 90s—their characteristic customs, the pains of each era, and, a hallmark of them all, the fluidity of human beings. Márcia devotes herself, fearlessly and sarcastically, to the task of digging, of applying the full potential of her scalpel, with a free hand, to dissect our fragilities, our inability to maintain even the slightest thread of the story, even when we imagine ourselves secure," praises Bernardo Ajzenberg.