Litro #114 Brazil and Rio Teaser

ANTÔNIO MOURA NILTON RESENDE LÚCIA BETTENCOURT LEONARDO VILLA-FORTE ANGÉLICA FREITAS JOÃO PAULO CUENCA ADRIANA LISBOA DAMIAN PLATT SÉRGIO RODRIGUES TATIANA SALEM LEVY

114

RAMON MELLO

cover image by Filipe Jardim

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CONTENTS

THE WAIT

07

ANTÔNIO MOURA TRANSLATED BY STEFAN TOBLER

THE CRACK

08 11

NILTON RESENDE TRANSLATED BY ALISON ENTREKIN

SUMMERTIME LÚCIA BETTENCOURT Photo. Daniel Mordzinski

13

ART: LOMBRA RODRIGO DE SOUZA LEÃO

TWO-PERSON MONOLOGUE

15

LEONARDO VILLA-FORTE TRANSLATED BY JACIARA TOPLEY LIRA

TWO POEMS:

17 19

TRANSLATED BY KIM HASTINGS

AT ELEVEN YEARS OLD & THE

GOLDMINE OF MY MUM AND MY AUNT

ANGÉLICA FREITAS TRANSLATED BY HILARY KAPLAN

THE TATTOOIST JOÃO PAULO CUENCA Photo. Jorge Bisbo

TRANSLATED BY JETHRO SOUTAR

TWO CALIGRAFIAS:

26

ALTITUDE &

THE PRESENT ADRIANA LISBOA TRANSLATED BY DIANE GROSKLAUS WHITTY

28

MONKEY HILL DAMIAN PLATT

32

THE STAPFNUNSK REPORT –

34

DESERT

36 37

A DECENT MAN SÉRGIO RODRIGUES

TATIANA SALEM LEVY TRANSLATED BY JACIARA TOPLEY LIRA

TWO POEMS:

TILES & HAVAIANAS RAMON MELLO

TRANSLATED BY THEREZA ROCQUE DA MOTTA

EVENTS LISTINGS ALEX JAMES ROBIN STEVENS

FROM THE EDITOR

WELCOME TO ISSUE 114 OF LITRO Rio de Janeiro is not quite a ‘world city’. It is too laid back, too full of switchbacks, so many roads ending at the beach. Yet this year and in the next few, it will be the focus of enormous suspense, high passions, international achievement and doubtless great disappointment too.

This year, a host of events will mark ‘Rio + 20’: the 20th anniversary of the original global climate change summit. Next year Brazil will be the focus country at the Frankfurt Book Fair, the biggest trade fair for books.

In 2014, Brazil will host the World Cup. One more blink and we’ll be back to Rio for the 2016 Olympics.

Brazilians are masters of the short short – represented here by Tatiana Salem Levy’s ‘Desert’ and two of Adriana Lisboa’s shimmering caligrafías. Experiment is not lacking anywhere: literature and mortality entwine in surprising ways in João Paulo Cuenca’s ‘The Tattooist’ and Sérgio Rodrigues’ ‘The Stapfnunsk Report’. That is not all!

If you like what you find here, please tell us. There may be more Brazilian issues, with different focuses, in the works.

Sophie Lewis

So it’s a good time for Litro to Guest Editor dip into Rio’s writing scene. Rio de Janeiro This issue features carioca poets, fiction and nonfiction writers and translators.

Among them, Ramon Mello takes us through his stacks Cover image courtesy of Filipe Jardim, of musty records; Lúcia Rio-born fashion and travel illustrator.

Bettencourt snaps a typically Jardim has provided illustrations for sweltering Rio commute, Hennessy Cognac, Hermès and Sao lightened by flirtation; the Paulo Fashion Week, and editorial erotic shows its darker side in work for the New Yorker, S/N and Nilton Resende’s ‘The Crack’. Piauí magazines.

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THE WAIT ANTÔNIO MOURA TRANSLATED BY STEFAN TOBLER

Waiting, standing, on the rock, between the sea’s green sphere and the star that nears every night, you speak more and more mutely, with a voice that listens to the bottom of another voice that comes and saysandoesn’t in an echo, in uh? seaweed language, a wee bit like this deaf sound:

nada, dressed in body and karma while the world dissolves

Antônio Moura was born in the Brazilian Amazon. He has published four collections of poetry and three of translations, including of César Vallejo. His poems have appeared in contemporary anthologies, including Nothing the Sun Could Not Explain: 20 Contemporary Brazilian Poets. He is currently being translated into Spanish, Catalan, German and English.

Stefan Tobler is a translator from Portuguese and German and the founder of the publisher And Other Stories. In 2009 he completed a doctorate focusing on Antônio Moura. His most recent translation is Clarice Lispector’s Água Viva, to be published

by Penguin (UK) and New Directions (US).

07 | LITRO

THE CRACK NILTON RESENDE TRANSLATED BY ALISON ENTREKIN “Sky-blue,” the boy hears, as he sweeps the yard and feels the broom come to a sudden halt. He looks to one side with a start, then behind him, then up, and sees his cousin clutching the handle as she crouches down. She takes his face, cupping it with her hands. She pulls back a little as she looks at him, taking his face out of the shade and thrusting it into the sun. He closes his eyes, but she asks him to open them. He obeys, slowly, his eyelids trembling, as the woman in front of him, half her body silhouetted against the light, arms outstretched and stroking his head, says, “Like an angel.” She then returns him to the zone of shade and rest as she kisses his forehead. “Your eyes are sky-blue.” She looks towards the porch. “He’s such a beautiful boy.”

“And a handful,” says his mother and comes down the steps to hug him. She points at the man with his back turned, unpacking the car trunk, “He’s big.” The cousin runs to the man and hugs him from behind, turning him around. “Meet my cousin.” He smiles, shoulders the gallon of wine and heads for the steps. “Drink wine. Our Lord sheds blood and we drink wine,” he says with a smile. The cousin slaps him on the back then laughs. He stops on the top step and looks over his shoulder. “Do the looks run in the family?” The two women hoot with laughter and go to fetch things from the car. They go into the house.

The whole morning is spent in preparations in the kitchen. At lunch, the boy drinks grape juice. “That’s all you can have for now,” says the man placing his arm around the boy’s shoulders. “Later you’re going to try other things, ‘cause there’s lots of good things in the world for those who know how to appreciate them,” and he takes a deep breath and winks at the women.

“You guys should spend the night here,” the boy’s mother says.

The cousin says the man has to work Saturday morning. “On Holy Saturday?” The cousin says watchmen don’t have public holidays; there are burglaries on Holy Saturday too. The mother understands, then adds immediately afterwards that at any rate it’s a shame, because no one ever makes the drive out and it’s sad being alone there.

“But we’ve got all afternoon to have fun,” says the man, getting up and taking off his shirt. He goes into the kitchen and comes back with a bottle of wine. “This is a little stronger.” The mother downs the rest of the wine in her glass in one gulp and holds it out. “Then I’m a goner.”

She laughs. “No you’re not,” says the man, filling her glass. “That makes two of us,” says the cousin, laughing. “In vino veritas!” says the man, raising his glass to his mouth. “In wine truth,” he explains to the women.

LITRO | 08

SUMMERTIME LÚCIA BETTENCOURT TRANSLATED BY KIM HASTINGS Since November the temperature had been rising steadily. It had reached more than thirty degrees and nothing, not even the downpours that fell every so often, could reduce the sweltering daytime humidity. Those headed to work, dressed in their polyester uniforms, cotton shirts if they were lucky, sighed with envy, looking at the playboys in their skimpy swimsuits or baggy trunks, who mingled with a crowd of women in bikinis, or in bikini tops and shorts rolled down beneath their waists to hold iPods, or even those lycra shorts that cut into bum cracks and coloured the world of buttocks with hot, vibrant colours, stamping jiggling cheeks with flowers and stripes that became almost obscene with movement. Inside the van, the passengers were sweating and suffocating from the lack of air conditioning. A heavy woman complained: “Could we turn on the AC? It’s an oven back here!”

“The AC isn’t working,” reported the thin man seated beside her.

The two sat in silent resignation, sweating their disappointment. The heavy woman grumbled further that they ought to demand a discounted fare.

“We pay more to travel by van because of the perks. . . . They’ve got to give a discount! . . . Or at least put up a notice saying the AC is broken!”

The driver, who had been listening all along but pretending not to hear the complaints, scoffed between clenched teeth: “What for? Bunch of illiterates.”

No one argued. It was too hot to fight; debate would only heat up the day, which at 7:30 in the morning had already hit twenty-nine degrees.

The passengers looked outside the van and watched the slow traffic along the avenue. Trucks delivering coconuts, vans picking up passengers, city construction work on the right, state construction work on the left.

The driver stopped, even though the van was full. The woman was young, her hair curly with stuff to make it look wet, her plump lips glistening as if she’d just eaten greasy sausage.

“Can you take me to Santa Teresa?”

She’d bent over to talk to the driver, sticking her face almost inside the vehicle, raising her haunches, so that every passerby felt aroused.

“You, I’d even take you to Cidade de Deus!”

The passengers held their breath, thinking he was going to change the

11 | LITRO

Lúcia Bettencourt is one of Brazil’s rising writers. Her first short story collection, A secretária de Borges (Borges’s Secretary), won the national SESC Prize for Literature and became a bestseller. Her third collection, O amor acontece (Love Happens), is forthcoming. Lúcia is currently writing a novel based on the life of Rimbaud.

Kim M. Hastings was raised overseas and spent several years in São Paulo. For the past fifteen years, she’s been a freelance editor and translator. Her translations include fiction by Caio Fernando Abreu, Rubem Fonseca, Rachel Jardim, Adriana Lisboa, Alberto Mussa, Thalita Rebouças and Ronaldo Wrobel.

TWO-PERSON MONOLOGUE LEONARDO VILLA-FORTE TRANSLATED BY JACIARA TOPLEY LIRA He started by telling me that it was all interconnected: the colt, the earth, the skirt, the strawberry and so on; because it had all been very well thought out, the relationship between the colours, the clothes, how the rooms were separated and even the way the man scratched his ear, a small homage to his ex-wife who, despite being far away, was undeniably present in everything around him; and so, because all the elements were there together, there was a sense of urgency in the air and the congruence of these things provoked a flurry of poetry which would inevitably be perceived by anyone, pushing into the background all the care taken with technique leaving only the odour of sanctity which meant that not paying attention for a single second was the most damnable heresy, which made me a terrible sinner as at times I couldn’t concentrate, but I didn’t mention this in the conversation, more because I didn’t want to interrupt the flow of his verbiage which seemed to do him such good, than because I was afraid of exposing my extreme insensitivity or ignorance which, should that happen, I preferred to keep to myself; and so then I continued to hear about how careless the guy’s girlfriend was, leaving her bag on the wooden table, and how this was in stark contrast to his obsession, but that the spuriously casual way she put her lipstick on showed how much she wanted him to pretend, and pretend well, so that she could almost blindly believe that he couldn’t care less about what she did or said, that his only concern was to keep up the great performance in bed and nothing else, and it was because of this that while she put her lipstick on he didn’t watch

13 | LITRO

LEGENDA DA TELA: 'Lombra' - Rodrigo de Souza Leรฃo, 2009 Oil on canvas, 80 x 50 cm ACERVO MUSEU DE IMAGENS DO INCONSCIENTE, Rio de Janeiro PHOTO CREDIT: Tomรกs Rangel

15 | LITRO

TWO POEMS ANGÉLICA FREITAS TRANSLATED BY HILARY KAPLAN

[AT ELEVEN YEARS OLD] at eleven years old behind my grandmother’s house in fishing village z-3 i smoked a gol cigarette bought singly in a boteco where the salesgirl knew my mother the salesgirl looked at me sideways but gave me the cigarette all the same and there in the kitchen garden my sister a cousin and i took our first puffs it was really bad fear kicked the joy out of the five-centavo gol that one of us flicked away at the sound of an aunt a dog or the wind through the collard greens

LITRO | 16

THE TATTOOIST JOÃO PAULO CUENCA TRANSLATED BY JETHRO SOUTAR From: Roberta S. To: Cuenca / cuenca@corpopresente.com.br Date: 20/10/2004 04.05 PM Subject: An admirer It’s just after midday. I sit on the train watching people come and go, their sullen faces, absent expressions. I see them carrying packages, handbags, holdalls. They unfold newspapers, read books, open magazines, or sit with their arms spread wide, taking up their own space as well as that of another.

We reach the next stop, three stations before I get off. It doesn’t matter where I’m going or where I’ve come from. All that matters is what happens at the end of the journey, as I’ll come to explain. People jostle and try to rush faster than the train itself, as if the world might end without them. I amuse myself watching them from behind my shades, my smiling eyes hidden. And then I see him coming.

His hands are empty but for his rings, and the fact that he’s not carrying anything fits my image of him. He stumbles clumsily. He has the look of a child and he’s thinner than the last time I saw him, when he was giving a talk. He stands by the door, languidly watching people looking out for their Albertos and Carmens. I smile inside when he looks at me, but I don’t flinch, remaining impassive. I cross my legs, open my handbag, find my notebook.

I jot down a description of his trainers, wine-coloured with a white puma on each side. Olive green trousers, a sleeveless black shirt. We reach the next station and he moves into the corner. His movement is light, his bulk minimal.

We’re on the move again. At the next stop some seats become free but he doesn’t sit down. He watches. I look at his face, his mouth, his small eyes. And I play a game of pretend and mentally undress him. The noise of the train, its violent shaking, hides voices, sweat, images.

We get off. I change paths and follow him, hidden in amongst the crowd. For a few yards the two of us walk together, until we reach the escalator. He’s standing in front of me and I can smell him from the step behind, breathe him in. My writer, completely naked, ambles off the escalator and I imagine touching his bum, as if by accident. I can’t help but let out a giggle, weirdo.

Once outside he blends in with the crowd and is devoured by a Copacabana ready to tell him its stories.

R.

LITRO | 18

TWO CALIGRAFÍAS ADRIANA LISBOA TRANSLATED BY DIANE GROSKLAUS WHITTY

ALTITUDE Taking the bus up into the mountains is different. Taking the bus up into the mountains, at night, is different. And if it’s a July night, and you’re in a window seat with no one beside you, and nobody’s talking on the bus and you hear nothing but the quiet purr of the engine (new bus), and if there’s no fog, and if there’s something like a piano playing Chopin inside your chest, then everything’s so different that it’s almost as if the world had been created some twenty-four hours ago.

Someone told you they went out yesterday and got back home at five and slept until one in the afternoon and had macaroni with ground beef and chopped frankfurters for lunch. Someone taught you how to say konnichi wa, a Japanese greeting. Someone looked at you kindly, someone else with curiosity (you were probably chewing your lips and making faces while you read in the subway), a taxi driver gave you a bit of a nasty look because it was a short run. Someone kept staring at you, danger in the eyes, and you almost buckled under. All of this was earlier today.

And now you are taking the bus up into the mountains and your soul is made of macaroni with ground beef and metro and a book and konnichi wa. Taking the bus up into the mountains is different. At night. The sky is dark, with stars, oh so many stars, flung haphazardly across it, and the trees are grey and sometimes pass right outside the windowpane. Along one stretch they drop completely away and you see the cities down below, clumps of light like tiny organised fires, and the biggest of them all, the huge fire, uncontrollable but pacified, is Rio, a flat sparkling strip that you left behind on the nine o’clock bus.

And suddenly you wonder: how many metres up, how many kilometers away? But what does it matter if the world is twenty-four hours old, and if it is here, in this space between, that everything happens.

LITRO | 24

MONKEY HILL DAMIAN PLATT

When Rio won the 2016 Olympics it was as if the whole city pinched itself.

Euphoric crowds sang and danced on the beach while, on the big screen above their heads, President Lula and Sergio Cabral, the state governor, hugged and wept. On buses and in backstreets people went about their business in quiet surprise. Although cariocas are dreamers, years of decline and disappointment have tempered their natural exuberance. But the next day it seemed that everyone was thinking the same thing: maybe, just maybe, life in Rio might improve.

Palpable optimism hung in the air for a few weeks before dissipating in an instant when war broke out in Vila Isabel, a bohemian middle-class neighbourhood. One Friday after midnight, gangs of soldiers from the Comando Vermelho (Red Command) drug faction invaded a favela called Morro dos Macacos, Monkey Hill. The initial invasion was slick and well organised and they drove up the hill in stolen cars and vans where they moved quickly to take over strategic points in the community. Then the plan went awry and the invaders became trapped between the police and their rivals.

Intense gun battles on both sides of the hill went on until Saturday evening.

Live TV broadcast images of shoppers taking cover in doorways and behind cars while the police armoured vehicle, the caveir達o (big skull) bore down residential streets. Bullets hit a police helicopter brought down by its pilot only seconds before it went up in flames. There were six police inside: three died. When the invasion began to fail, CV bosses from other areas in the city sent minions out to burn buses, a traditional faction tactic for protesting and distracting attention. A mood of instability took hold and people cancelled shopping trips, nights out and parties. Most cariocas stayed at home to watch constant replays of the helicopter circling and churning thick black smoke before becoming a fireball and crashing into the ground, as any residual high spirits about the Olympic victory dissolved into torn metal, blood and ash.

Evandro Jo達o Silva, my colleague and friend, was the charismatic founder of one of the successful AfroReggae cultural centres, and one of few in the city who tried to not let events spoil his weekend. But the city centre by night, far from the war zone in Vila Isabel, carried its own risks. Evandro was shot dead in a street robbery early on Sunday morning, killed walking from one nightspot to another. Security cameras recorded the attack, and over the next days Globo showed the footage on all its news programmes: first the attack on Evandro, who fights two men who jump him from behind and shoot him during the struggle, and later on, a clip that shows a police vehicle drive past him as he lies dying in a shop window. Then even more footage

LITRO | 26

THE STAPFNUNSK REPORT –

A DECENT MAN WRITTEN & TRANSLATED BY

SÉRGIO RODRIGUES The witness Olaf Stapfnunsk, born in Stockholm, naturalised Brazilian, 48 years of age, owner of a private gym, resident of … street in the city of ..., after swearing by the Law, stated that: by 9am on Thursday 7th October this year, he had arrived at his gym, located on ... street, and went straight up to the office, where he couldn’t help noticing the absence of Totó, his subordinate, full name Alceu Gouveia Nunes, who should have been there by then; this fact made him swear angrily in Swedish (subba was the word he swore, deemed untranslatable by the witness) and, in fury over Totó’s lack of professionalism, grab the phone and get on alone with the scheduled morning task of the month, namely, telemarketing to the neighbourhood; let it be stated that this telemarketing work consisted of offering prospective clients a week’s worth of free gym access, work that he, the witness, did not enjoy doing at all, yet had already done on a few occasions, due to Totó’s unreliability; and so for the next hour, until 10am, the witness spoke with five potential customers, of whom two showed interest in his offer and two gave a blunt no; the fifth customer (chronologically the second, as it were) said neither yes nor no, only remained silent until the silence seemed to be broken by a thud, and did not hang up, so he waited for a few seconds, saying a couple of hellos and not getting any response, then rang off and went on to the next call; having finished the last one, he then proceeded to the gym floor to work out a little and to supervise the overall functioning of his business; only a few hours later, already hungry and intending to go out for lunch, did the witness go back to his office to look something up and there, on skimming through a news portal, learned of the famous writer Ettore Luxemburgo’s death by heart failure, that morning; the piece the witness read said the man had just been found stiff on the floor beside his bed, wearing pyjamas, phone in hand; not being a man of letters, he had frankly never heard of the famous writer until that moment, but recognised the name of one of the potential customers he had called that morning; and yes, the witness is positive about the name, the foreign flavour of Ettore and Luxemburgo together being, mnemonically, a killer; reading on, he then scanned a piece of news about the just-awarded Nobel Prize for Literature and (though not a man of letters, as already stated) LITRO | 30

DESERT TATIANA SALEM LEVY TRANSLATED BY JACIARA TOPLEY LIRA

The water has been lapping his feet for a while, since he arrived at the beach and installed himself there, on the shore. Every day he performs the same ritual: he wakes up at half-past five, has a cup of black coffee and goes down to the beach. He walks from the entrance of his building, located in the inner part of Copacabana, to the sand. Then he doesn’t walk anymore. They’ve already told him that he should walk, that it’s good for the heart, especially at his age.

But his heart prefers to admire the sea, which isn’t very rough today, but does have waves, the kind which break little by little, they reach the shore without rushing, caressing the sand.

He does everything as he does every day. Soon, very soon, in his thoughts, which follow the movement of the waves, a memory will appear which has been with him for a long time. Thirty or forty years, he can’t remember exactly anymore. It’s always like this, the memory comes gently, without warning. It comes, and he allows it to spread, like a watercolour painting, the shapes revealing themselves behind the stains. It could have been triggered by some external event, a bigger wave which covered his body, a cloud which blocked out the sun. But no, it never comes from outside: it’s as if it was there, keeping watch.

He looks at the sea, his eyes wide open, and sees everything: he sees himself drinking a beer at a bar, a lot younger, but not really young, and her coming closer, her long nose, dark skin, black hair and hips ideal for belly dancing. When she gets to the bar, smiling, and holds out her arms, too hairy for a woman from the tropics, he steps back, his eyes misting, his dreams shattered. She doesn’t understand.

Neither does he, but he leaves anyway.

Immediately afterwards, another image comes, one from a little before that one. He is sitting at the same bar, and sees a woman, who seems Arab, for the first time. They don’t even know each other, but she smiles as if she had known him since time began. She doesn’t need to say anything, it is written on her lips that they have always been together, and this is how they will stay until the last day, and even after that, if there is an after. He is troubled by

LITRO | 32

TWO POEMS RAMON MELLO TRANSLATED BY THEREZA ROCQUE DA MOTTA

SONGS

SHATTERED

at the selarón staircase songs shattered feelings coloured under the rain walking for months

I put an ad in the paper I’ve asked everyone but no one has news from you

two hundred and fifteen degrees to find out he does not accept the black umbrella it’ll be a revenge

meanwhile the flip-flops continue to rest in the laundry area behind the door between the mop and the floor cloth since that night I’ve only walked barefoot it’s my protest

they ask

Ramon Mello is a poet and journalist, author of “Mouldy Records” (Língua Geral, 2009).

Thereza Christina Rocque da Motta is a poet, editor and publisher at Ibis Libris (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil).

LITRO | 34

LISTINGS APRIL ATTRACTIONS The Cutty Sark Reopens in Spring 2012 The last and most famous tea-clipper, which broke all records for speed in 1885, closed to the public on 5 November 2006 in order to start work on the planned conservation programme. It is due to reopen with improved displays and access in Spring 2012 Blue Badge Olympic Marathon Walk Launches 21 April 2012 Book your place on a new walking tour highlighting the route of the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Marathon, the perfect tour for those planning to watch the London Marathon the next day. This is not the full 26 miles 385 yards, just a nine kilometre stroll taken during the course of a day and with a break for lunch. You will learn why marathons are always that particular distance, and the clue lies in the London Games of 1908. You’ll hear tales of the competitor who covered part of the course by carriage and of runners who were plied with champagne and brandy during the competition. Your Blue Badge Tourist Guide will help you pick the best spots from which to view this free event.

EXHIBITIONS Palaces Science Museum, 2 April - 28 July 2012 Palaces is a participatory artwork made from thousands of milk teeth donated by children around the UK. Standing two metres high, the sculpture resembles a coral castle under water.

Designed by artist Gina Czarnecki, the aim of the project is to raise questions about consent and the reuse of human tissues in medical research, as well as to draw attention to sources of stem cells in the body.

35 | LITRO

The Wild, the Beautiful and the Damned Hampton Court Palace, 5 April - 30 September 2012 This major new exhibition will shine a light on the decadence of the Baroque court at Hampton Court Palace. Exploring the hedonistic world of the royal court during the reigns of Charles II, James II, William III, Mary III and Anne (1660-1714), the exhibition will introduce visitors to the monarchs, courtiers and courtesans who illuminated Hampton Court in the late 17th and early 18th centuries.

Gross und Klein The Barbican, 13 - 29 April 2012 Sydney Theatre Company lead the Barbican’s London 2012 season with Cate Blanchett, the Company’s Co-Artistic Director, in Benedict Andrews’ production of Gross und Klein (Big and Small)

by Botho Strauss. This Barbican co-commission has a new English text by Martin Crimp. First staged in 1978, Gross und Klein whisks audiences down a rabbit hole and into a curious Wonderland-like world where Lotte (Cate Blanchett) is always trying to fit in. Like Carroll’s Alice, sometimes Lotte is too big for her surroundings and sometimes too small to be noticed within them.

An Evening of Burlesque Blackheath Hall, 21 April 2012 Direct from London’s West End, the UK’s first and only touring burlesque show is coming to town. Showcasing award-winning talent from across the country, it’s an opportunity to see some of the world’s biggest burlesque stars in the flesh. Theatregoers are promised corsets, killer heels and stockings aplenty. An Evening of Burlesque features an all-star cast of beautiful and elegant performers.

World Shakespeare Festival Various London locations, 23 April - 9 September 2012 The World Shakespeare Festival, produced by the Royal Shakespeare Company, will run from 23 April to 9 September 2012, celebrating how the world performs, teaches and engages with Shakespeare, and will form part of the London 2012 Festival.

In collaboration with many partners, including the Roundhouse, the Barbican, the National Theatre, and the BBC, we will welcome the world and celebrate Shakespeare as the world’s playwright, showcasing the best of UK and international creative talent, exploring Shakespeare’s place in the lives of young people and harnessing the energy and creativity of emerging artists and amateur companies.

LITRO | 36

Globe to Globe Shakespeare’s Globe, 23 April - 9 June 2012 For the first time, 37 international companies present all 37 of Shakespeare’s plays in 37 different languages in a kaleidoscopic, six week festival starting on Shakespeare’s birthday. An opening weekend of celebrations includes an adaptation of Venus and Adonis by the Isango Ensemble from South Africa, a public open day at the Globe to celebrate Shakespeare and the worlds’ languages, and Ngākau Toa’s Troilus and Cressida beginning the festival with a haka. Globe to Globe is part of the World Shakespeare Festival and the Cultural Olympiad 2012.

Sundance London 2012 The O2, 26 - 29 April 2012 Robert Redford, The Sundance Institute and AEG Europe present film screenings, live music performances, master classes and more at the inaugural Sundance London. This new four-day multidisciplinary arts festival will be held at The O2, the world’s most popular music and entertainment venue. The Sundance Film festival will include film screenings, live music performances, discussions, panels and other public cultural programming.

St George’s Day Menu Boyds Brasserie, 23 April 2012 Boyds Brasserie, situated just off Trafalgar Square, will be preparing a patriotic menu for St George’s Day to showcase the best of English produce. The special four-course sample menu will feature a selection of favourite English dishes including: Roast rump steak, claret sauce with horseradish, creamed potato and roasted root vegetables, and Castle pudding with custard.

Brandy Nan Afternoon Tea Andaz Liverpool Street, running throughout April 2012 To celebrate the Diamond Jubilee, 1901 at Andaz Liverpool Street offers a series of afternoon teas fit for a queen. Each month, you can enjoy a unique afternoon tea inspired by the five longest serving British queens - and April’s afternoon tea will be dedicated to Queen Anne. Her indelible mark left us not only with the races at Ascot, but it was also during her reign that the Duke of Marlborough defeated forces of Louis XVI at the Battle of Blenheim. The tea includes sandwiches of sauerkraut, white sausage and sweet mustard, Fleschkase with fried onion and salmon with lemon mayo and pickled vegetables, along with a selection of pastries. The specialty cocktail of the month is cognac stirred with red fruit tea, honey, Orget and cherry syrup, with a dash of Bitters.

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The Botanical Afternoon Tea InterContinental London Park Lane, from 1 April 2012 Celebrating its location overlooking the iconic Royal Parks, The Wellington Lounge at InterContinental London Park Lane is introducing The Botanical Afternoon Tea, which mixes peels, berries and herbaceous botanicals for a sensory experience. The Botanical Tea presents a contemporary twist on tradition and begins with a botanical pear drop that gently bursts in the mouth.

Open-face sandwiches follow with nettle marinated asparagus rolled in sirloin of beef; and Scottish lobster and shrimp with caviar and fresh dill. Warm citrus peel scones are served with quince preserve and clotted cream along with a selection of stunning desserts. The tea is paired with a specially created ginbased cocktail from The Arch Bar, or a choice from The Wellington Lounge’s bespoke tea menu.

Russie Blanche at K Spa K West Hotel, from April 2012 K Spa will launch Russie Blanche as its newest product and treatment range, and will be the first spa in the UK to offer Russie Blanche treatments. Russie Blanche was developed by former Miss USSR and fashion model Julia Lemigova. The new treatments will combine the traditions of a Russian “Banïya” with French refinement and know-how, plus all products are formulated using anti-stress Russian plants and 100% pure, natural essential oils. K Spa’s hot areas and Snow Paradise reflect accurately the ancient therapies and remedies performed in Russia.

Dickens on the Thames: a literary boat trip Boat tour with the Museum of London, 5 May 2012 Spend an afternoon boating down the Thames, discovering Dickens’ London and the river at its heart. From Festival Pier to Greenwich and back, experts Alex Werner and Tony Williams (co-authors of Dickens’s Victorian London) will uncover the key sights of the author’s life and works - from the blacking factory he worked in as a boy to the Limehouse pub in Our Mutual Friend.

The Garden of Edible and Useful Plants Chelsea Physic Garden, opening 23 May 2012 London’s oldest botanical garden is creating an inspiring new halfacre garden. The Garden of Edible and Useful Plants will display an extraordinary range of plant species on which humanity depends; from forest fruits and land restoration plants to super foods and plants used for hygiene, science and the arts. The new garden will showcase a diverse collection of productive and functional plants, incorporating both the beautiful and bizarre. Exciting new

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features include a compact vineyard, a living plant amphitheatre and a stone pier to view Robert Fortune’s tank pond.

Universe of Sound 23 May - 8 July 2012 A virtual Philharmonia Orchestra will take up residence at the Science Museum. An immersive digital installation will employ the latest digital and interactive technologies to reveal the inner workings of each orchestral section and invite the public to interact, create and explore. The project will include a live performance of The Planets, the commission of a new work to allow the audience to develop their own musical journey.

Build the Truce Expressions of Movement The Grove, 1 May - 30 September 2012 London’s country estate, The Grove is opening its gardens and grounds this summer to celebrate and champion one of the most exciting and dynamic art forms - sculpture. The curator, Virginia Grub has invited 24 sculptors and artists, to create pieces which are loosely inspired by 2012’s two great events: The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee and the 2012 London Olympics and Paralympics.

The result is an engaging and surprising collection of 57 pieces together titled Expressions of Movement. Come and interact with the sculptures whilst enjoying lunch or tea at the Grove. All sculptures and paintings on display will be available for sale.

Bauhaus: Art as Life Barbican, 3 May - 12 August 2012 Exploring the world’s most famous modern art and design school, Bauhaus: Art as Life is the biggest Bauhaus exhibition in the UK in over 40 years. From its avant-garde arts and crafts beginnings the Bauhaus shifted towards a more radical model of learning uniting art and technology. A driving force behind Modernism, it further sought to change society in the aftermath of World War 1, to find a new way of living. This major new Barbican Art Gallery show presents the pioneering and diverse artistic production that makes up the school’s turbulent fourteen-year history from 1919 to 1933 and delves into the subjects at the heart of the Bauhaus - art, design, people, society and culture. For more information contact Ann Bern

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LITRO | 114 BRAZIL II: RIO

“He’s standing in front of me and I can smell him from the step behind, breathe him in. My writer, completely naked, ambles off the escalator and I imagine touching his bum, as if by accident. I can’t help but let out a giggle, weirdo. Once outside he blends in with the crowd and is devoured by a Copacabana ready to tell him its stories.”

- The Tattooist by João Paulo Cuenca TRANSLATED BY JETHRO SOUTAR

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Obra publicada com apoio do Ministério da Cultura do Brasil / Fundação Biblioteca Nacional This work is published with the support of the Brazilian Ministry of Culture / National Libray Foundation

www.litro.co.uk ISBN 978-0-9554245-5-7