Nelson Rodrigues

“I acknowledge that I’m cheating here, because this is two volumes, containing 12 of the 17 plays Rodrigues wrote. He is one of the great figures of modern Brazilian literature, best known as a playwright, but also a novelist and essayist. His plays are constantly shocking and were considered so vile when they came out, beginning in the 1940s, that he was nicknamed ‘a degenerate in suspenders’. Some are comedies, others are melodramas or tragicomedies, but they are always about the middle and lower-middle classes in Rio de Janeiro.” Read more...

The best books on Brazil

Larry Rohter, Foreign Correspondent