A TAXI FOR VIENNA, AUSTRIA, by Antônio Torres, is one of the most respected and well-known works of the Bahian writer. Written in 1991, the novel references Torres's previous works, a kind of record that unites the author's entire oeuvre, in a broad portrait faithful to the contradictions and emotional dramas. The book tells the story of an unemployed advertising executive who commits a crime and takes a taxi to escape. But at the wrong time: rush hour. In the middle of a massive traffic jam in Ipanema, the fugitive listens attentively to Mozart's Mass in C major playing on the car radio, thus beginning an imaginary journey, in which not everything is reality. But his fantasy is far from being just a dream. Confined to a taxi, Torres's character is a metaphor for Brazil, for a country that seems to be at a standstill. Eternally stuck in a traffic jam. In A TAXI TO VIENNA, thieves rob while talking about Cervantes, Machado de Assis, and Shakespeare; typical, sun-kissed locals from Ipanema present themselves to solve seemingly insoluble problems, and the narrator is a Brazilian pretending to be a foreigner, who dreams in English. Torres combines a tongue-in-cheek style with a fun and intelligent narrative. Winner of several awards in Brazil and abroad, Antônio Torres's literature is the best in the Brazilian literary scene. A TAXI TO VIENNA, DURING THE DAY reveals a Brazil that, despite Third World poverty, insists on existing with its clever refrains. The character listening to Mozart doesn't want to be woken by anyone. He prefers to dream. In Antônio Torres's narrative, boundaries are shattered by the frenetic pace of the postmodern city, by the fragmentation of images that burst in flashes, by the derealization of the most quotidian of realities. An unmissable novel, already a classic of Brazilian literature, reissued by Editora Record with a new graphic design. Antônio Torres was born on September 13, 1940, in Junco, a village in the interior of Bahia. He studied in Alagoinhas and Salvador, where he joined the Jornal da Bahia newspaper. At 20, he moved to São Paulo, where he worked as a reporter and editor-in-chief of the sports section of the newspaper Última Hora. He switched from journalism to advertising, working as a copywriter for major Brazilian agencies. He made his literary debut in 1972 with the novel "A Dog Howling at the Moon." In 1976, he published "This Land," his greatest success, which has been translated into French, Spanish, Italian, German, Hebrew, and Dutch. He is also the author of "Ballad of Lost Childhood," "The Round-Footed Men," "Letter to the Bishop," "Goodbye, Old Man," "The Center of Our Inattention," "The Dog and the Wolf," "The Circus in Brazil," "Boys, I Tell," and "My Dear Cannibal." In 1998, he was decorated by the French government as a Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres. In 1987, he received the Novel of the Year award from the Pen Club of Brazil for *Ballad of Lost Childhood* and in 1997 the hors concours award for Novel from the Brazilian Writers' Union for *The Dog and the Wolf*. *My Dear Cannibal* earned him the Zaffari & Bourbon Prize from the Passo Fundo Literary Conference in 2001. "Antônio Torres, far from forgetting his origins and his land, returns to them through fiction, inserting them into literary geography." *Jornada da Tarde* "Torres's work is a challenge; it offers a wonderful opportunity to learn about people and cultures that understand us more than we understand them." *Los Angeles Times Book Review* "There is no trace of sentimentality in Torres's work. On the contrary, every emotion is polished with good humor and a dose of elegant irony." *Isto É Magazine*
