New Books In Literature

Writer and translator Edgar Garbelotto speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about his short story “A Fourteen-Hour Lesson in Theosophy,” which appears in Issue 20 of The Common magazine.  The story imagines the final hours of author Clarice Lispector’s life. In this conversation, Garbelotto talks about the process of fictionalizing a real person, and bringing her to life in the streets of Rio. Garbelotto also discusses the experience of writing and translating in English, which is his second language, and the way that experience has changed his approach to writing original work. Portuguese is a more playful, allegorical language than English, Garbelotto says, and he’s learned to approach each language differently. Edgar Garbelotto is a writer and translator born in Brazil and based in the US for 20 years. His translation of João Gilberto Noll’s novel Lord won the 2020 Jabuti Prize as Best Brazilian Book Published Abroad and was a finalist for the 2020 Lambda Literary Award in Best Gay Fiction. His translat