Telles, Lygia Fagundes. Tigrela and Other Stories. New York. 1986. Avon/Bard. 0380896273. Paperback Original. Translated from the Portuguese by Margaret A. Neves. 152 pages. paperback.
FROM THE PUBLISHER -
FROM THE LAND OF CARNIVAL . . . STORIES TO CONFOUND AND AMAZE - The bizarre merges with the whimsical in these wonderful, imaginative tales by one of Brazil’s finest women writers. Here the limitless dream life of the mind becomes chillingly real as the supernatural turns commonplace and the fantastic transforms the everyday to bring us a new look at society’s follies and man’s fears. In the title story, ‘Tigrela,’ a sophisticated lady acquires the soul of a tigress, or is it something more? In ‘Ants’ two students have a terrifying confrontation with the macabre. And in each one of these gripping fictions, the dark side of a superb storyteller’s art works to defy us, shock us, and show us a strange, but undeniable truth. TRANSLATED BY MARGARET A. NEVES.
Lygia Fagundes Telles (born April 19, 1923) is a Brazilian novelist and short-story writer. She was born in Sao Paulo, Brazil, but spent her childhood in small towns in the state where her father served as district attorney, police commissioner, and a judge. This childhood experience provided the imaginative background for many of her stories. Today she is a lawyer and president of the Brazilian Cinematheque, founded by her late husband, film critic and author Paulo Emilio Salles Gomes, whose novel P.’S THREE WOMEN is available from Avon Books. Lygia Fagundes Telles has published three novels, a half dozen novellas, and seven short story collections. THE MARBLE DANCE was her first novel. Her first book of short stories, Praia Viva (Living Beach), was published in 1944. In 1949 got the Afonso Arinos award for her short stories book O Cacto Vermelho (Red Cactus). Among her most successful books are Ciranda de Pedra (The Marble Dance) (1954), Verão no Aquário (1963), Antes do Baile Verde (1970), Seminário dos Ratos (1977) and As Horas Nuas, (1989). In 1969 she was awarded the Cannes Prix International des Femmes for her short story ‘Before the Green Masquerade’ (Antes do Baile Verde) chosen from among the works of authors from twenty-one countries. Her most famous novel is As Meninas (The Girl in the Photograph), which tells the story of three young women in the early 1970s, a hard time in the political history of Brazil due to the repression by the military dictatorship. In 2005 she won the Camões Prize, the greatest literary award in the Portuguese language. She is one of the three female members of the Brazilian Academy of Letters.