Cuíer

Calico Series #4

by Caio Fernando Abreu, Angélica Freitas, Carol Bensimon

For the first time ever, and amidst the backdrop of Bolsonaro’s emboldened far-right regime, Brazil’s legendary and pioneering queer writers appear together in English translation. This far-reaching, bilingual assortment of fiction, poetry, nonfiction, and photography—erotic and personal, revolutionary, hopeful, joyous, and bitter—fiercely upholds the ongoing legacy of queer expression in Brazil and anticipates, even demands, its prolific, if tenuous, future.

In fresh and poetic prose, Raimundo Neto brings us lesser-known narratives of queer life in rural Brazil, including the story of a boy determined to become the “harvest bride” at a the local annual harvest dance. Poet Angélica Freitas details a disturbingly familiar world in which women are divided into rigid binaries—clean or dirty, good or bad—with stark language that builds into utter absurdity. And Caio Fernando Abreu sits in a hospital dying of AIDS, meeting with angels and writing letters in which he repeats “all I can do is write” like a mantra. Spanning four decades, and featuring a total of thirteen writers, Cuíer: Queer Brazil reminds us again, as Natalia Affonso says in her translation of Tatiana Nascimento’s poem:

…what we make
lying down is
also
revolution.

Genres: Poetry, Short Stories, Queer, LGBT, Anthologies, Nonfiction, Gay

240 pages, Paperback

Published September 28, 2021

About the author

Caio Fernando Loureiro de Abreu nasceu no dia 12 de setembro de 1948, em Santiago, no Rio Grande do Sul. Jovem ainda mudou-se para Porto Alegre onde publicou seus primeiros contos. Cursou Letras na Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, depois Artes Dramáticas, mas abandonou ambos para dedicar-se ao trabalho jornalístico no Centro e Sul do país, em revistas como Pop, Nova, Veja e Manchete, foi editor de Leia Livros e colaborou nos jornais Correio do Povo, Zero Hora, O Estado de São Paulo e Folha de São Paulo.

No ano de 1968 — em plena ditadura militar — foi perseguido pelo DOPS (Departamento de Ordem Política e Social), tendo se refugiado no sítio da escritora e amiga Hilda Hilst, na periferia de Campinas, São Paulo.

Considerado um dos principais contistas do Brasil, sua ficção se desenvolveu acima dos convencionalismos de qualquer ordem, evidenciando uma temática própria, juntamente com uma linguagem fora dos padrões normais.

Em 1973, querendo deixar tudo para trás, viajou para a Europa. Primeiro andou pela Espanha, transferiu-se para Estocolmo, depois Amsterdã, Londres — onde escreveu Ovelhas Negras — e Paris. Retornou a Porto Alegre em fins de 1974, sem parecer caber mais na rotina do Brasil dos militares: tinha os cabelos pintados de vermelho, usava brincos imensos nas duas orelhas e se vestia com batas de veludo cobertas de pequenos espelhos. Assim andava calmamente pela Rua da Praia, centro nervoso da capital gaúcha.

Em 1983 transferiu-se para o Rio de Janeiro e em 1985 passou a residir novamente em São Paulo. Volta à França em 1994, a convite da Casa dos Escritores Estrangeiros. Lá escreveu Bien Loin de Marienbad.

Ao saber-se portador do vírus da AIDS, em setembro de 1994, Caio Fernando Abreu retorna a Porto Alegre, onde volta a viver com seus pais. Põe-se a cuidar de roseiras, encontrando um sentido mais delicado para a vida. Foi internado no Hospital Menino Deus, onde posteriormente veio à falecer.

Reviews

[ruruisme · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cuier Queer Brazil book review.

Cuier Queer Brazil is a must read. In a relevant era where no one hides their sexuality and the freedom of coming out is truth. This collection of twelve writings by Brazil’s most acclaimed and influential writers. These moving stories include fiction, poetry, nonfiction and photography. It’s erotic and harsh. Drawing prevalence on today’s LGBTQ’s coming out. Describing their personal reflections & muse of life leading the reader into the revolutionary, hopeful, joyous and deeply personal labyrinth of life and death. Looking into a window of many lives.

I loved reading and re-reading.

[Adrian Shanker · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was excited to read this collection of queer Brazilian literature - some of the contributions were great, others weren’t. But mostly, the anthology lacked context and really needed an introduction or foreword to contextualize the contributions in Cuir for a readership that may not be familiar with Brazilian literature.

[Mack]

difficult for me to rate an anthology but my favorite piece in here was “Lalinha’s Auntie” by Raimundo Neto

[Ian Taylor · Rating 3 out of 5]

The formatting of this book is superb, the cover image is one of the most beautiful book covers I've ever seen, and the very existence of a collection of work written by queer Brazilian authors is a fantastic thing.

[Brendan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a wonderful collection of queer Brazilian writing. These small almost-square books ate among my favorite series at the moment; I have not read a single bad one yet.

[Andrea · Rating 3 out of 5]

As many other reviewers have shared, this collection could do with an introduction. There is a section in the back of the book that provides brief biographies for each author that I read before going into each piece, but still I think the collection would have been aided by an explanation of why these pieces were chosen and how they're tied together. I did enjoy my time overall, but there were certain pieces where I very much struggled to understand what was going on or, what, exactly, I was supposed to gain through reading it. I have a few possible culprits here: firstly, I'm not much of a poetry reader and I may not have been quite trained enough to discern meaning from certain poems, secondly, I worry the translation may have been ineffective and, lastly, there simply might have been a wedge driven between myself and the texts due to our cultural barriers: I am not Brazilian, nor am I Brazilian-American, and I do not speak Portuguese.

That being said, this was still a fun and refreshing reading experience. I'd like to list my favorite pieces, the ones that I did get quite a lot out of: "Fat Tuesday" by Caio Fernando Abreu (and "Three Letters for Beyond the Walls" by the same author, but I especially enjoyed "Fat Tuesday"), "A New House" by Carol Bensimon, the poetry of Tatiana Nascimento, "Farrina" by Cidinha da Silva, and the poetry of Ricardo Domeneck (particularly "Shyness in Linen").

[Jim Gladstone · Rating 2 out of 5]

In his poem “Saturday”, Marcio Junqueira achingly depicts an unfulfilled mutual crush between two brainy, sensitive teenage boys. The now-adult narrator recalls trying to seduce the object of his affection not with sex, but with nerdy esoterica; passionately scavenged knowledge of “books and songs and films and quotes.” That his books include poems about Brazil by Elizabeth Bishop, the American lesbian poet, points to a clever, multi-layered artistic vision that Junqueira seems to share with editor Sarah Coolidge who has assembled Cuíer (pronounced queer), a lively collection of contemporary Brazilian LGBTQ writing. American readers will easily connect with the universality of queer experiences portrayed, from romance, to coming out, to struggling with identity and with AIDS, but will find them enlivened and made fresh again by uniquely Brazilian details: The carnaval setting of the late Caio Fernando Abreu’s story, “Fat Tuesday”; references to the music of Caetano Veloso; distinctive descriptions of a rural harvest festival; and of course, the original Portugese text of each piece, which appears on alternating pages with its English translation. Given Brazil’s past allure as a destination for queer travelers (currently dimmed by the combination of Covid and Trump fanboy President Bolsonaro), the selections here will surely stir up some wanderlust. That said, the book’s appeal is somewhat diminished by the egregious lack of an introductory essay. In a short volume that ambitiously mixes fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, it would be helpful to have an editor’s perspective on how and why these specific pieces have been selected to represent Brazil’s queer literary landscape.

[Peter · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don’t always read the forwards or introductions to books, but this book seriously required context that wasn’t present.

while I am an ardent fan of literature in translation, I found this collection somewhat confusing? some of the selections, such as caio Fernando abreu and Wilson bueno, were obviously talented and great selections for the collection. Cidinha da Silva was also cool. But many of the other selections I was confused by. Perhaps aiming for breadth of experience over quality, this book is a mixed bag of queer lit and wasn’t exactly what I was looking for. again, if there was some sort of guidance on how the collection was assembled, I might have been more of a fan

[Matthew · Rating 4 out of 5]

An impressive collection of queer literature from Brazil - short stories, poetry, and nonfiction - mostly in conversation with the repressive right-wing Bolsonaro regime but some predating it as well. I struggled with a few of the stories but overall this is very good stuff.

[ella rintala · Rating 5 out of 5]

best little free library find to date! this authentic and unique glimpse into brazilian queerness was a wonderful june read

[Everett Hays · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 / 5