The Taker And Other Stories

(Hardback)

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Description

The first collection of Fonseca's short stories to appear in English, ranging across his oeuvre, exploring the sights and sounds of Rio de Janeiro. Fonseca's Rio is a city at war, where vast disparities, in wealth, social standing and prestige are untenable. Rich and poor live in an uneasy equilibrium, where only overwhelming force can maintain order and violence and deception are the essential tools of survival. From the tale of the businessman who rans over pedestrians to let off steam to a serial killer being pushed to kill more by his lover, this collection is a true gem.

Reviews

"The Taker is like a blast to the headhere is a dark, sinister Rio de Janeiro, populated by street urchins, stalkers and serial killers. What sort of urban hell have we stumbled into ... Short, fragmented vignettes that ring with the hard-boiled edge of crime fiction."Anderson Tepper, Time Out New York "Rubem Fonseca writes like the maniacal dreamchild of Cortazar and Bukowski. Crazed, ribald, and relentless, the stories in The Taker roam the streets of Rio like their disturbed characters, overwhelmed by the strangeness of life."Stewart O'Nan "Fonseca's work confirms, in the final analysis, that as a writer he has gone where none have dared in Brazilian literature."World Literature Today "[Fonseca's narratives] take advantage of and reinvent existing popular literary forms, such as the crime novel, but also the political, social, existential and erotic novel."2003 Juan Rulfo Prize Jury

Author Bio

Rubem Fonseca is considered one of Brazil's most influential writers, and was awarded the Prmio Camesconsidered the Nobel Prize of Portuguese language literaturefor his body of work in 2003. That same year he was awarded the Juan Rulfo Prize. Clifford E. Landers has translated many of the great writers of Brazil, including Jorge Amado, Joo Ubaldo Ribeiro, Patricia Melo, Osman Lins, and Moacyr Scliar among others. He received the Mario Ferreira Award in 1999.