Take Six

by Margaret Jull Costa (Editor/Translator), Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen, Agustina Bessa-Luís

Take Six is a celebration of six remarkable Portuguese women writers: Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen, Agustina Bessa-Luís, Maria Judite de Carvalho, Hélia Correia, Teolinda Gersão and Lídia Jorge.

They are all past mistresses of the short story form, and their subject matter ranges from finding one’s inner fox to a failed suicide attempt to a grandmother and grandson battling the wind on a beach. Stories and styles are all very different, but what the writers have in common is their ability to take everyday life and look at it afresh, so that even a trip on a ferry or an encounter with a stranger or a child’s attempt to please her father become imbued with mystery and humour and sometimes tragedy. Relatively few women writers are translated into English, and this anthology is an attempt to rectify that imbalance and to introduce readers to some truly captivating tales from Portugal.

Genres: Portugal, Short Stories

280 pages, Paperback

First published February 16, 2018

About the author

Margaret Jull Costa has translated the works of many Spanish and Portuguese writers. She won the Portuguese Translation Prize for The Book of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa in 1992 and for The Word Tree by Teolinda Gersao in 2012, and her translations of Eca de Queiroz's novels The Relic (1996) and The City and the Mountains (2009) were shortlisted for the prize; with Javier Marias, she won the 1997 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award for A Heart So White, and, in 2000, she won the Weidenfeld Translation Prize for Jose Saramago's All the Names. In 2008 she won the Pen Book-of-the Month-Club Translation Prize and The Oxford Weidenfeld Translation Prize for The Maias by Eca de Queiroz.

Reviews

[Katia N · Rating 5 out of 5]

I admire Margaret Jull Costa's translation work. I've read a lot of books translated by her from Spanish and Portuguese including Javier Marias, Pessoa, Eca de Queroz. Therefore the fact that she edited this collection automatically triggered my attention. She also wrote a short introduction where she said: "This anthology is double celebration, firstly of six brilliant Portuguese women writers, and, secondly, of the short story form, at which they are excelled." And this is exactly what this book is.

After reading these stories, I have an impression that the work of these six women is a classics in Portugal. It is a shame that they are not well represented in English. The variety of their literary styles is exciting, and all the stories are wonderful. It was a pleasure to read realistic, but very heart-warming stories by Sophia de Mello. Agustina Bessa-Luis could easily compete with Kafka. The world of Teolinda Gersao is surreal but more firmly grounded into the reality of female daily existence. Maria Carvalho's novella is a quite bleak social satire, but it is full of insights and black humour. Lidia Jorge writes a very carefully constructed prose. Ricardo Piglia said in his essayTheses on a short story that the best of them contain two levels - the one on the surface and the one carefully hidden. And the story essence lies in how these two levels interact. I was thinking about it a lot reading her stories. And Hellia Correia is the most surreal, absurdist and daring of them all. Each writer is specially introduced through half a page bio which i've found very helpful as well.

I appreciated "the celebration of the short form". It so happened that I've recently read quite a few collections of short stories including Borges, Dinosaurs On Other Planets, Mephisto's Waltz: Selected Short Stories and this collection. I've always liked the form. But this time it is not about the plot and the characters for me. I experience an overwhelming aesthetic pleasure of reading them, discover the variety of possible constructions, brevity and elegance.

Before reading, I did not know about any of the writers included in this collection. And now I feel dissatisfied as, apart from two cases, their work is not translated into English. But if you like short stories and want to try the less known path, i cannot recommend this collection more.

[Alice-Elizabeth (Prolific Reader Alice) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Country prompt challenge: Portugal

3.5 stars!

I found this collection of short stories on Scribd that have all been translated from Portuguese to English and the first half of them really surprised me. Some of the subject content isn't the easiest to read about (family relationship breakdowns, mental health breakdowns etc) but at times, the style was visual and expressive. The second half felt a little slow and draggy, hence why the star rating is at 3.5 overall.

[Rebecca R · Rating 5 out of 5]

This collection is a celebration of six Portuguese women writers, all born in the first half of the twentieth century, and features twenty short stories, primarily about the lives of women, replete with wonderfully astute observations and chance encounters that have far-reaching consequences.

Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen’s ‘Saga’, inspired by her own Danish great-grandfather, is a poignant coming-of-age story about the heady freedom of leaving childhood behind, but also the responsibilities of adulthood:
"And Hans understood that, like all lives, his life – the impatient, pulsating life within him – would no longer be his own, but a mixture of conflict and compromise, desires fulfilled and desires frustrated, although, strictly speaking, anything was possible."

One of my favourite stories was Maria Judite de Carvalho’s ‘So Many People, Mariana’ which reminded me of Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels. A fifteen-year-old girl has a revelation of aloneness that she carries with her for the rest of her life, though she bears it with courage and humour. She grasps a moment of independence after her husband leaves her and becomes pregnant out of wedlock, for which she is punished by society and fate—a sad reality of a woman’s life in the 1950s.

Agustina Bessa-Luís’s brief but engaging stories contrast ecstatic moments of spiritual revelation with the prosaic realities of buying train tickets and coping with annoying neighbours.

In Teolinda Gersão’s strange and captivating story, ‘The Red Fox Fur Coat’, a woman covets a fox fur coat in a shop window to such an extent that it begins to physically transform her.

In Lídia Jorge’s moving story ‘Instrumentalina’ a particular word evokes childhood memories—in this case, of a beloved uncle obsessed with his racing bicycle.

"She was the girl most likely to have her head smashed against the wall by a gust of north-easterly wind. Tall and empty, offering her broad back to the skies as if it were a pair of paper wings."
So begins the final story in the collection, Hélia Correia’s ‘Two Hands,’ a surreal story told in powerful prose, about forces of destiny the characters are powerless to escape.

[Marie · Rating 4 out of 5]

An enjoyable collection of short stories, providing a window into the worldview of women writers from Portugal. Many are from the perspective of children; some deal with memories, both trustworthy and otherwise. There is a tinge of remorse and sadness in the tales of those who meet a sorry demise. Wrapped in a shroud of the supernatural and metaphysical, many of these stories are ironically somewhat upkiting; they reinforce the validity of a life.

[Jsess · Rating 4 out of 5]

I haven’t read anything that was translated from another language in a long time. I started this book during a trip to Spain and Portugal. These Portuguese female authors were forces for sure. These short stories are dark and heavy and thought-provoking. I’m glad I read this while and after traveling to Portugal. The tone and beauty of these mostly tragic stories have a haunting quality that lingers in your mind much like the wonder and history of the country of their birth.

[Kim · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great taste of Portuguese women’s writing - a literature that I now want to delve into more.

[Oona · Rating 5 out of 5]

Terrific introduction to Portuguese short stories from voices that have been largely inaccessible to English speakers for too long. Read some Saramago and some Pessoa, but don’t miss this.

[Jess · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyed this so much I am reading it again. So many people, Marina is probably the saddest story I have read to date.

[Helen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed reading these mostly quite good short stories by Portuguese writers with whom I wasn’t familiar even though most are really depressing. Margaret Jull Costa is a wonderful translator.

[Rebecca Nichols · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some ok stories and some that are really quite awful.

[Charlotte Richards · Rating 4 out of 5]

As always, short story collections are a mixed bag. Interesting insight into the role of women in Portugal during the 20th century.

[Geert · Rating 4 out of 5]

As with most collections with different authors, I like some much more than others. So far, Theolinda Gersão and Lidia Jorge are the best for me.