Father and son, son and father (2002)
This book is a collection of short stories by Moacyr Scliar written in the late 1990s and early 2000s. It was in this genre that Scliar made his fiction debut with The Carnival of the Animals (1968).
The imagery of everyday life (2001)
Life does not always imitate art. More often than not, life inspires art, for obvious reasons. The richness of everyday life is infinite. Dramas, comedies, farces, harrowing tragedies, complicated psychologies, all boil in the reality of everyday life. To know how to explore this inexhaustible material is a test of intelligence, but it also requires a certain amount of adaptation on the part of the writer, as Moacyr Scliar did in producing the works collected in this book. Accustomed to drawing material for his work from his own mind, the writer from Rio Grande do Sul was somewhat embarrassed when he received an invitation from Folha de S. Paulo to write fiction based on news published in the newspaper. In other words, art not only imitates life, but also embodies the immediate reality of everyday life. At first, Scliar had his doubts. Would it work? As he threw himself into the project and overcame his own misgivings, he soon became aware of the multiple possibilities of the approach. More than embarking on a new adventure, what fascinated him was the possibility of exploring a kind of virtual history “that complements or expands the real history (if we know just what is the real history).” So, he began to pick out snippets from the news, apparently incapable of serving as inspiring fictional material: the stock market causing a trader to become neurotic, four people injured by stray bullets, hungry monkeys invading cities, a man arrested for faking his own kidnapping, a supposed mathematical model capable of predicting goals in soccer, the player who wanted to copyright his goals. These are brief ideas that the author explores with sarcasm, emotion or pure mockery, but always with the gift of communicating with readers and involving them from the very first sentence.
The three-pointed tongue: Chronicles and quotations on the art of speaking badly (2001)
Sentences and comments on important topics such as marriage, money, law, politics, medicine, media, intellectuals, and more. Divided into eight parts, each chapter begins with a chronicle by the author, followed by dozens of quotes, each more biting than the last. There are over five hundred, uttered by famous figures from history and the present.
Port of stories: Mysteries and twilights of Porto Alegre (2000)
Port of Stories is a book full of information and fascinating facts about Porto Alegre. Scliar’s elegant style takes us through the city’s history, revealing its tourist attractions, but above all, the most intimate side of this metropolis. The cuisine, the sports, the nightlife, the climate of Porto Alegre, its typical inhabitants and even how locals look forward to and enjoy their weekends. Scliar revisits the illustrious residents of the Guaíba River, such as Luiz Carlos Prestes, Mario Quintana, Lupicínio Rodrigues, Getúlio Vargas and Erico Verissimo, among others. These characters help make up a well-informed and humorous itinerary of Porto Alegre, a true guide for travelers from inside and outside Brazil.
Stories for (nearly) every taste (1998)
Tales and chronicles by Moacyr Scliar. Gentle and sometimes radical, Scliar’s narrative flows through the pages of this book, moving back and forth between the everyday and the fantastic. Readers find themselves caught up in the author’s antics and, when he sets out to write stories for (nearly) every taste, the result is a journey into the pleasure of reading. It’s a bit of everything. And to cultivate the pleasure of reading, anything goes. And everyone is included: those who like prophecies, journeys, dialectical fantasies, artistic mysteries, amusement parks, televisions, soccer, celebrities, biblical themes, scholarly details, remote controls, cars…
The Storytellers (1997)
Seeking to present his characters in moments of crisis and unusual situations, Moacyr Scliar mixes the real, the fantastic, and the social in a very humorous way.
Madonna’s lover & other stories (1997)
Fourteen tales from the writer who introduced the theme of Jewish culture into Brazilian fiction and is now considered one of the leading figures in the urban narrative of Brazil.
My mother won’t sleep until I get home (1996)
This book reveals another writing genre of Moacyr Scliar: the chronicle. More specifically, the chronicle for children and young adults. In a colloquial, humorous text, affectionately connected to readers, Scliar devised 25 stories that enchant young people of all ages. These reveal the desire to establish fraternal and familial bonds, describing the daily adventure in which we all participate intensely.
