A literary guide to Brazil

Anderson Tepper wrote Salon's literary guide to Brazil.

Jorge Amado, Machado de Assis, and Clarice Lispector merit discussions. Then Tepper turns to:

[a] side of Rio [that] explodes off the pages of Paulo Lins' novel "City of God," a sweeping, gritty, shoot'em-up accounting of three decades in the life of one of the city's most notorious favelas, or slums. Published in Brazil in 1997, "City of God" was a labor of love for Lins, an urban anthropologist who grew up in the neighborhood himself -- an exhaustive study that morphed into a novel, became a bestseller in Brazil, and then came to international attention as the acclaimed 2002 hit film by Fernando Meirelles.

Based on stories from Rio's grim underbelly -- as the drug business spiraled into violent turf wars in the '80s -- "City of God," the novel, reads more like a news flash, a bulletin from the front lines of Brazil's social ills.

Other contemporary writers mentioned in the article include Peter Robb, Alma Guillermoprieto, and Caetano Veloso.

Read the Salon article.

Other items in Salon's literary guide series include:
A literary guide to Colombia
A literary guide to The Netherlands
A literary guide to Chile
A literary guide to Alaska
A literary guide to Washington, D.C.
A literary guide to Vancouver
A literary guide to Baltimore
A literary guide to Argentina
A literary guide to Afghanistan
A literary guide to Louisiana
A literary guide to Australia
A literary guide to Norway
A literary guide to Turkey
A literary guide to Japan
A literary guide to Martha's Vineyard
A literary guide to West Texas
A literary guide to Togo
A literary guide to Brooklyn
A literary guide to Miami

--Marshal Zeringue