Vastlands: The Crossing
Will be published approx. on 19. January 2027
Book
Hardback
544 pages
978-1-5266-9772-1 (ISBN)
Description
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY COLM TOIBIN
'Dramatic, wildly colourful and continuously interesting' NEW YORK TIMES
'A veritable linguistic tour de force' MARIO VARGAS LLOSA
In 1956, Brazilian author Joao Guimaraes Rosa published what would become his magnum opus, Grande Sertao: Veredas. South American literary critics were astounded by this ground-breaking ode to the backlands of Brazil, declaring it the Brazilian Ulysses. Guimaraes Rosa's astounding work would take the Latin American literary world by storm.
Originally translated as The Devil to Pay in the Backlands in 1963, Vastlands is a single sweeping retrospective monologue from the point of view of Riobaldo, a former jagunco - a mercenary or bandit - recounting his life in the backlands of inland Brazil. Raised in poverty by a single mother, Riobaldo receives a basic education before forging his own path within the deeply embedded machismo of the backlands, buoyed by his incredible military abilities and sheer tenacity. His story is a twisting narrative of fraught longing and the flux of power in a lawless state, of old feuds and new betrayals, exiles, Faustian pacts and precarious hierarchy.
Now, over sixty years since its only English translation and seventy years since its initial publication in Portuguese, multi-award-winning literary translator Alison Entrekin renders Guimaraes Rosa's feat of linguistic engineering in kaleidoscopic prose, offering the key to this beloved yet often-overlooked masterpiece to a new generation of readers.
'Dramatic, wildly colourful and continuously interesting' NEW YORK TIMES
'A veritable linguistic tour de force' MARIO VARGAS LLOSA
In 1956, Brazilian author Joao Guimaraes Rosa published what would become his magnum opus, Grande Sertao: Veredas. South American literary critics were astounded by this ground-breaking ode to the backlands of Brazil, declaring it the Brazilian Ulysses. Guimaraes Rosa's astounding work would take the Latin American literary world by storm.
Originally translated as The Devil to Pay in the Backlands in 1963, Vastlands is a single sweeping retrospective monologue from the point of view of Riobaldo, a former jagunco - a mercenary or bandit - recounting his life in the backlands of inland Brazil. Raised in poverty by a single mother, Riobaldo receives a basic education before forging his own path within the deeply embedded machismo of the backlands, buoyed by his incredible military abilities and sheer tenacity. His story is a twisting narrative of fraught longing and the flux of power in a lawless state, of old feuds and new betrayals, exiles, Faustian pacts and precarious hierarchy.
Now, over sixty years since its only English translation and seventy years since its initial publication in Portuguese, multi-award-winning literary translator Alison Entrekin renders Guimaraes Rosa's feat of linguistic engineering in kaleidoscopic prose, offering the key to this beloved yet often-overlooked masterpiece to a new generation of readers.
Reviews / Votes
One of Brazil's greatest novelists * New York Times * A veritable linguistic tour de force. One of the most formally accomplished works of the century -- MARIO VARGAS LLOSA, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature A literary work of rare dimension . . . One of the greatest books ever written. Brutal, tender, hearty, wild, vast just like Brazil itself -- JORGE AMADO, author of Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands One of the great novels of the last century. With its complex vision of life and fate, with its garrulous and wily narrator, it exudes a vast and engrossing narrative energy -- COLM TOIBIN, author of Brooklyn The most audacious and well-realised experimental novels to come out of twentieth-century Brazil -- CAETANO W. GALINDO A magnificent achievement -- Alexander Coleman * New York Times * All the audacity of the construction, all the richness of the philosophical content would be mere games of intelligence if Guimaraes Rosa's sertao were not also, besides a symbol, a living and concrete reality, with its animals, plants, people, and superstitions admirably described -- PAULO RONAI An extraordinary masterpiece . . . Within it everything is strong, beautiful, impeccably realised -- ANTONIO CANDIDO, winner of the Alfonso Reyes International Prize As an account of guerrilla warfare, wilderness journeys, assorted atrocities, lust, hate, vengeance and killing, it is dramatic, wildly colourful and continuously interesting -- Orville Prescott * New York Times * He has given Portuguese a new flexibility, which enables him to find effective literary expression for insights and experiences beyond the reach of conventional prose -- William L. Grossman * New York Times * A pure delight -- MUCIO LEAO, former president of the Brazilian Academy of Letters Guimaraes Rosa is a renevator of language -- JOSUE MONTELLO, former president of the Brazilian Academy of Letters A recognised masterpiece of Brazilian literature and a classic of twentieth-century fiction -- LUCIANA STEGAGNO PICCHIOMore details
Other editions
Additional editions
Joao Guimaraes Rosa
Vastlands: The Crossing
E-Book
approx. 01/2027
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
€21.49
Not yet available
Persons
Alison Entrekin is an award-winning literary translator from Portuguese into English. She has translated many of Brazil's most beloved and iconic literary works. She has won the New South Wales Premier's Translation Prize and PEN medallion and the AAWP Translator's Prize. She has been an American Literary Translators Association Travel Fellow and a finalist in the PEN America Translation Prize, the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, among others. Entrekin speaks regularly on the topic of literary translation and has taught translation workshops around Brazil.
Joao Guimaraes Rosa was a novelist and short-story writer whose innovative prose style, derived from the oral tradition of the sertao (hinterland of Brazil), revitalised Brazilian fiction in the mid-twentieth century.
Joao Guimaraes Rosa was a novelist and short-story writer whose innovative prose style, derived from the oral tradition of the sertao (hinterland of Brazil), revitalised Brazilian fiction in the mid-twentieth century.