Short Story Writer Dalton Trevisan - Born 1929, author who spent his entire life in his home town of Curitiba, Brazil, devoted to writing short stories, lots of short stories, enough short stories to fill over forty books. Forty books of short stories! Love how a literary artist can be so dedicated to one and only one form of writing.

An all-time favorite short story scenes of mine is from an anthology of Latin American fiction I read years ago: João a pint-sized male prostitute is held immobile by obese Maria, ravenously sex-hungry and driven by lust to mount poor João and pin him to her bed as if pinning an insect to a specimen board. Nearly suffocating, unable to so much as budge, João fights for his life, desperately gasping for air, having been squished by mounds of sweaty, perfumed, fleshy flab. And I will never forget this line: “Oh, little bat, lost in the gargoyle of a baroque cathedral.” Afterwards, when Maria finally waddles off to the bathroom, João stands next to the bed, exhausted yet gazing triumphantly at his naked reflection in the full-length mirror and strikes the pose of a victorious matador.

Sound like an author you would like to read? His name is Dalton Trevisan and his succinct, pithy stories, likened to haiku in prose, are set in the poorest neighborhoods of his home city, Curitiba in southern Brazil. Gregory Rabassa, translator of such Latin American masterpieces as Garcia-Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude and Julio Cortázar’s Hopscotch, has rendered The Vampire of Curitiba from Portuguese into English, capturing Trevisan’s vivid portrayal of the many and varied tortures endured by the urban swarm of Joãos and Marias.

Here is how one of the book’s forty-four tales begins: “After an argument with his wife Maria, João left the house: “Why don’t you stick a knife in my back once and for all? No, you’re too perverse. Cut a little piece out every day, enough to draw blood without making the victim bleed too much. Every day, with cruel elaboration, you take off another chunk of skin. Look at me, you murderess—I’m all raw flesh, my whole body skinned!”

João moves to a hotel for a month but he can’t take it; his every thought is of Maria. The story ends with João picturing Maria in his mind’s eye: “Seeing her in tight slacks and dark glasses was like discovering the sign of betrayal—if she were to tint her blonde hair there would be no more hope. On that same afternoon he accepted his sister-in-law’s mediation. A few days later João went back home and was unhappy forever.”

Dalton Trevesan in his many years as author (he is currently ninety-two) has only written short stories - no novels, no plays, no poetry, no essays. I liken his short stories to compressed Anton Chekhov or narrative variations of haiku dragged through the slums, spotlighting perversion and degradation, a string of his short stories as terse, potent snappers, firing off one after the other.

Another example - my short synopsis of one of the seven stories under the heading The Conjugal War: Hard working, loving husband João cries tears over his wife Maria sleeping with one loafer, vagabond or drunk after another while he slaves away as a waiter at a small restaurant and, half dead on his feet during his off-hours, takes care of their four daughters. At the end, Maria leaves but writes João a letter calling him a shameless cuckold and announcing she will return for her daughters, which after all, are hers and not his, since she would never have any children by such a whimpering stooge as him.

The Corpse in the Parlor features a sadistic father and his revengeful daughter. The father dies and is laid out in the apartment’s parlor. Daughter Ivete enters and we read, “She could smell the fragrance of the wilted flowers and the four candles—when the wicks flickered, shadows would come rushing through the door. And underneath all the smells, the smell of that man. He was there in the coffin, his chin tied with a white handkerchief that was knotted at the top of his head, and he smelled." What act of sadism did the father inflict on daughter Ivete? And what was Ivete’s act of revenge? Let me just say that this story is almost too good to be true. You will have to pick up the book to find out just how good. Thank you, Dalton Trevisan for writing and thank you, Gregory Rabassa for translating.



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Short Story Writer Dalton Trevisan - Born 1929, author who spent his entire life in his home town of Curitiba, Brazil, devoted to writing short stories, lots of short stories, enough short stories to fill over 40 books. Love how a literary artist can be so dedicated to one form of writing.

One of my all-time favorite short-story scenes is from an anthology of Latin American fiction I read years ago: João a pint-sized male prostitute is held immobile by obese Maria, ravenously sex-hungry and driven by lust to mount poor João and pin him to her bed as if pinning an insect to a specimen board. Nearly suffocating, unable to so much as budge, João fights for his life, desperately gasping for air, having been squished by mounds of sweaty, perfumed, fleshy flab. And I will never forget this line: “Oh, little bat, lost in the gargoyle of a baroque cathedral.” Afterwards, when Maria finally waddles off to the bathroom, standing next to the bed, exhausted yet gazing triumphantly at his naked reflection in the full-length mirror, João strikes the pose of a victorious matador.

Sound like an author you would like to read? His name is Dalton Trevisan and his succinct, pithy stories, likened to haiku in prose, are set in the poorest neighborhoods of his home city, Curitiba in southern Brazil. Gregory Rabassa, translator of such Latin American masterpieces as Garcia-Marquez’s ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude’ and Julio Cortázar’s ‘Hopscotch,' has rendered ‘The Vampire of Curitiba’ from Portuguese into English, capturing Trevisan’s vivid portrayal of the many and varied tortures endured by the urban swarm of Joãos and Marias.

Here is how one of the book’s forty-four tales begins: “After an argument with his wife Maria, João left the house: “Why don’t you stick a knife in my back once and for all? No, you’re too perverse. Cut a little piece out every day, enough to draw blood without making the victim bleed too much. Every day, with cruel elaboration, you take off another chunk of skin. Look at me, you murderess—I’m all raw flesh, my whole body skinned!”

João moves to a hotel for a month but he can’t take it; his every thought is of Maria. The story ends with João picturing Maria in his mind’s eye: “Seeing her in tight slacks and dark glasses was like discovering the sign of betrayal—if she were to tint her blonde hair there would be no more hope. On that same afternoon he accepted his sister-in-law’s mediation. A few days later João went back home and was unhappy forever.” Dalton Trevesan in his many years as author (he is currently 90) has only written short stories - no novels, no plays, no poetry, no essays - short stories I liken to compressed Anton Chekhov or narrative variations of haiku dragged through the slums, spotlighting perversion and degradation, a string of his short stories as terse, potent snappers, firing off one after the other.

Another example - my short synopsis of one of the seven stories under the heading ‘The Conjugal War’: Hard working, loving husband João cries tears over his wife Maria sleeping with one loafer, vagabond or drunk after another while he slaves away as a waiter at a small restaurant and, half dead on his feet during his off-hours, takes care of their four daughters. At the end, Maria leaves but writes João a letter calling him a shameless cuckold and announcing she will return for her daughters, which after all, are hers and not his, since she would never have any children by such a whimpering stooge as him.

“The Corpse in the Parlor’ features a sadistic father and his revengeful daughter. The father dies and is laid out in the apartment’s parlor. Daughter Ivete enters and we read, “She could smell the fragrance of the wilted flowers and the four candles—when the wicks flickered, shadows would come rushing through the door. And underneath all the smells, the smell of that man. He was there in the coffin, his chin tied with a white handkerchief that was knotted at the top of his head, and he smelled." What act of sadism did the father inflict on daughter Ivete? And what was Ivete’s act of revenge? Let me just say that this story is almost too good to be true. You will have to pick up the book to find out just how good. Thank you, Dalton Trevisan for writing and thank you, Gregory Rabassa for translating.
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