Book Talk! Bruna Dantas Lobato for Moldy Strawberries by Caio Abreu

133 North Larchmont Boulevard,Los Angeles CA 90004

01 August, 2022

Description

Masks Required. ABOUT THE BOOK Caio Fernando Abreu is one of those authors who is picked up by every generation. Surreal and gripping stories about desire, tyranny, fear, and love, from one of Brazil's greatest queer writers, whose work is appearing in English for the first time. In 18 gripping and daring stories filled with tension and intimacy, Caio Fernando Abreu navigates a Brazil transformed by the AIDS epidemic and stifling military dictatorship of the 80s. Tenderly suspended between fear and longing, Abreu's characters grasp for connection: A man speckled with Carnival glitter crosses a crowded dance floor and seeks the warmth and beauty of another body. A budding office friendship between two young men turns into a surprising love, "a strange and secret harmony. One man desires another but fears a clumsy word or gesture might tear their plot to pieces. After so many precarious offerings--a salvaged cigarette, a knock on the door from withing the downpour of a dream, or a tight-lipped smile--Abreu's schemes explode and implode. Junkies, failed revolutionaries, poets, and conflicted artists face threats at every turn. But, inwardly ferocious and secretly resilient, they heal. For Caio Fernando Abreu there is beauty on the horizon, mingled with luminous memory and decay. ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR Bruna Dantas Lobato was born and raised in Natal, Brazil. A graduate of Bennington College, she received her MFA in Fiction from New York University and is currently an Iowa Arts Fellow and MFA candidate in Literary Translation at the University of Iowa. Her stories, essays, and translations have appeared in The Kenyon Review, Harvard Review, A Public Space, BOMB, and elsewhere. ABOUT THE INTERLOCUTOR Elisa Wouk Almino is a writer, editor, teacher, and literary translator from Portuguese. In March of 2022, Elisa joined the Los Angeles Times as the Deputy Editor of Image magazine, which covers LA fashion, art, photography, style, and more. Notes on parking in Larchmont Village: Chevalier's does not have any parking, but there is paid meter parking on the street, a paid lot next to the bank, and free street parking parallel the Larchmont Blvd. on Lucerne Blvd.