Rat Fever | Javier Arancibia Contreras | Granta Magazine

Rat Fever

Javier Arancibia Contreras

Translated by Jethro Soutar

‘Everything around me, myself included, is warm and sticky.’

Javier Arancibia Contreras

Javier Arancibia Contreras is a writer, journalist and screenwriter. He was born in Salvador, Bahia, after his family emigrated from Chile during the dictatorship. He has lived in Santos, São Paulo, since adolescence. Contreras is the author of two novels: Imóbile (2008), which was shortlisted for the São Paulo Prize for Literature, and O dia em que eu deveria ter morrido (2010), for which he was awarded a literary grant from the São Paulo state government. While working as a crime reporter, he wrote a book on playwright Plínio Marcos, A crônica dos que não têm voz, which was part reportage and part biographical study. ‘Rat Fever’ (‘A febre do rato’) is a new story.

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Translated by Jethro Soutar

Jethro Soutar is a writer and translator of Spanish and Portuguese. He is co-editor of The Football Crónicas, a collection of translated short-form writing from Latin America, and a co-founder of Ragpicker Press. His recent translations include Juan Tomás Ávila Laurel’s Arde el monte de noche (By Night the Mountain Burns) and Frei Beto’s Hotel Brasil, published in English under the same title.

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