THE PORTUGUESE LITERATURE CHALLENGE
The mechanics are posted here. It will basically cover pre-1920 literature translated from the Portuguese, mainly the period of Tropical Belle Époque.
The reading is to end by April 30, 2012. You can check the reading lists for Portugal and Brazil.
A group reading of The Book of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa is pretty much a done deal sometime in the first quarter of the year. I almost bought this book the last time I went to Manila. So I guess I have to finally buy it.
This year I hope to read ten stories by Machado de Assis from Oxford Anthology of the Brazilian Short Story (2006), ed. K. David Jackson. [It's a selection that aims for comprehensiveness, containing 72 stories by 37 Brazilian writers. The most represented writers in it were Machado de Assis (10 stories, 63 pages), Clarice Lispector (9 stories, 36 pages) and João Guimarães Rosa (7 stories, 56 pages).]
Sometime next year (because my immediate reading queue is now full to brimming) I want to finish Euclides da Cunha's Rebellion in the Backlands, the "Bible of modern Brazil". I started it, and actually loved what I read so far. But the reading requires me to strain very hard. The language is ... the language of the elements. And it's full of science stuff, a bit nerdy, but really good, in a masterpiece kind of way.
