Items25The creator’s order
  1. 1Memórias póstumas de Brás Cubas (1881)Memórias póstumas de Brás Cubas (1881) 7.4/10 on Open LibraryPublished 1 Jan 1881A dead man can afford to be indiscreet, and Brás uses that freedom to expose his own vanity along with the society that indulged it. Tiny chapters, interruptions and jokes make the reader part of the performance. Choose Flora Thomson-DeVeaux's 2020 translation for attentive notes on the Brazilian…0
  2. 2Slum (2000)Slum (2000)Published 1 Jan 2000A Rio tenement becomes a whole social world, full of work, desire, money and neighbours watching one another. Azevedo's crowded movement gives the building as much force as any individual ambition. Read David H. Rosenthal's translation, in the Oxford edition. Published in 1890, this is also a novel…0
  3. 3Martín Rivas (2000)Martín Rivas (2000)Published 1 Jan 2000A provincial young man enters a wealthy Santiago household and discovers that being useful, being respectable and being accepted are different things. Romance shares the stage with social ambition and Chilean political conflict. Tess O'Dwyer's Oxford translation offers an English route into Blest…0i
  4. 4The Sing-song Girls of Shanghai (Weatherhead Books on Asia) (2005)The Sing-song Girls of Shanghai (Weatherhead Books on Asia) (2005)Published 1 Jan 2005Shanghai's courtesan houses run on reputation, money, conversation and precarious loyalties. The large cast rewards patient attention to who owes what to whom, rather than a search for one representative heroine. Use the Eileen Chang and Eva Hung translation published by Columbia in 2005, with its…0
  5. 5Noli me tángere (1899)Noli me tángere (1899)Published 1 Jan 1899Ibarra returns to the Philippines hoping to improve his community, only to encounter the interlocking power of clergy, officialdom and social ambition. Rizal mixes farce with a fierce account of colonial injustice. The original Spanish novel was published in 1887; this record represents an 1899…0
  6. 6Rajmohan's wife (2008)Rajmohan's wife (2008)Published 1 Jan 2008Matangini's unhappy marriage, forbidden attachment and dangerous knowledge make domestic life a place of suspense. Look beyond the melodramatic turns to the routines and restrictions of the Bengali household. First serialised in 1864, Bankimchandra's novel was written in English; the linked record…0
  7. 7A Relíquia (1887)A Relíquia (1887) 8.5/10 on Open LibraryPublished 1 Jan 1887Teodorico wants the freedom to enjoy himself and the inheritance promised by a pious aunt. A pilgrimage to the Holy Land turns his performance of devotion into a gloriously unstable enterprise. Choose Margaret Jull Costa's Dedalus translation of this 1887 novel. Eça's satire has room for farce,…0
  8. 8Tristana (1892)Tristana (1892) 6.0/10 on Open LibraryPublished 1 Jan 1892Tristana wants an independent life, but her choices are constrained by a guardian who is also her lover and by the practical costs of freedom. Galdós lets generosity coexist with predation, and aspiration with self-deception. Choose Margaret Jull Costa's 2014 NYRB translation of the 1892 novel. Her…0
  9. 9The bethrothed; "I promessi sposi" (1827)The bethrothed; "I promessi sposi" (1827)Published 1 Jan 1827The Betrothed follows two villagers prevented from marrying as they are caught in a larger world of power, war, hunger and plague. Manzoni's narrator moves between intimate troubles and public catastrophe with sympathy and an often comic eye for authority. Choose Michael F. Moore's translation. The…0
  10. 10Sult (1890)Sult (1890) 7.5/10 on Open LibraryPublished 1 Jan 1890A penniless writer walks Kristiania trying to preserve his pride while his body and judgement become less dependable. His bizarre decisions can be funny a moment before they become painful. Sverre Lyngstad's translation, available from Canongate, is the recommended English version. Published in…0