Murilo Eugênio Rubião (1916-1991) in Carmo de Minas (then Silvestre Ferraz), in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil. He published his first collection of short stories, O ex-mágico, in 1947. The collection made little impression at the time, and Rubião entered into politics, first as a political advisor and then as chief of staff for Governor Juscelino Kubitschek, who would later become president of Brazil. Between 1956 and 1961, Rubião was named cultural attaché for Brazil in Spain, and in 1966 he founded the Literary Supplement of the Diário Official de Minas Gerais, which would become one of the most widely distributed cultural supplements in Brazil. After publishing two more collections of stories, A estrela vermelha (1953) and Os dragões e outros contos (1965), it was the publication in 1974 of his fourth collection, O pirotécnico Zacarias, which brought Rubião sudden literary fame. His unique and unsettling brand of magical realism, which at times seems to challenge notions of logic and rationality, has often been compared to the work of Franz Kafka.

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translators

Anthony Doyle was born in Ireland in 1973. He holds a BA in English and Philosophy and an MA in Philosophy, both from University College Dublin. He has been living in Brazil since 2000, where he works as a translator from Portuguese to English. He translates fiction, non-fiction, drama and poetry, with titles published through some of the world’s leading outlets, including Penguin, Amazon Crossing, Cambridge University Press and Oberon Books. He also translates film scripts and subtitles, having worked for many of Brazil’s main film production companies and directors. He is the author of the children’s book O Lago Secou (Companhia das Letras).

Victor Meadowcroft grew up at the foot of the Sintra Mountains in Portugal and translates from Portuguese and Spanish. He is a graduate of the MA in Literary Translation program at the University of East Anglia and, with Margaret Jull Costa, has produced co-translations of stories by renowned Portuguese author Agustina Bessa-Luís which appeared in the collection Take Six: Six Portuguese women writers. He is currently working on Lisbon Tales, an anthology of Portuguese fiction set in Lisbon, in collaboration with translator Amanda Hopkinson, as well as translations of chapters from Capão Pecado by Brazilian author, and father of the ‘Literatura Marginal’ movement, Ferréz, for Kathleen McCaul’s Megacity Fictions project.