Bruna Dantas Lobato
I, You, He
by Caio Fernando Abreu, translated from the Portuguese by Bruna Dantas LobatoArchipelago Books consistently introduces brilliant international writers to English-language readers. In May, they'll publish Caio Fernando Abreus collection of eighteen stories, Moldy Strawberries, bringing this revered Brazilian writer to English for the first time. Abreu animates 1980s Brazil with deeply personal accounts of daily life against a larger biopolitical backdropmuch like Reinaldo Arenas did for 1970s Cuba. But the tone of these stories is what I found most striking. Abreu balances matter-of-fact description with an inquisitive voice similar to that of Ocean Vuong. The story excerpted here typifies Abreus investigation of self, otherness, and the unlikelihood of connection.