From the first ever Best of Young British Novelists, which introduced Salman Rushdie and Rose Tremain, and set the bar for generations to come, to the several British and American lists that followed and most recently a Best of Young Spanish-Language Novelists, Granta has consistently introduced the stars of the future before they become household names.
Today we are delighted to announce the twenty authors who make up Granta’s list of The Best of Young Brazilian Novelists.
Granta editor John Freeman says, ‘I’m very pleased about this Brazilian list, released in the year of Jorge Amado’s centenary, as Brazil’s economic and cultural influence is growing. Here are his vibrant offspring, many of them appearing in English for the first time, proof that one of the great pleasures of reading is finding the unexpected, the voices we didn’t even know we needed so much.
‘We buy Brazil’s clothes, we admire its football, we dance to its beats, but the dream-life of the nation – something contemporary fiction creates in a unique and vital way – remains mostly invisible to us, simply because of a lack of translation. I’m hoping this issue can change that a little, and introduce writers who will be with us for decades.’
Marcelo Ferroni, editor of Alfaguara, says, ‘It’s very hard to get Brazilian literature translated, especially into English, so the idea that this issue will be published in English, not to mention Chinese and Spanish, is very exciting to us. The world will finally get to see what’s happening in contemporary
Brazilian literature.’
