Vertiginous Life: Bilingual Edition

Rio de Janeiro in 1911 was a venerable city in a new republic just a generation old. The people of Rio felt as new as the new century. A new culture of immigration and education blossomed. New technologies of machinery--Automobiles! Airplanes!--advanced with blinding speed. Feminism! Advertisement! Democracy! Global travel! New journalism! Tea, slander, migrant camps, uppity servants! Life in Rio de Janeiro was dizzying. Vertiginous.

In the giddy swirl of modernity, literary journalist João do Rio aimed his critical eye at a great city and society in transformation. His collection of articles, Vida Vertiginosa, is presented here for the first time in the English language. It ranks with his Religions in Rio as a classic of Brazilian nonfiction.

João do Rio was a journalist way ahead of his time. A man of the streets, the people, the bars and restaurants, sui generis, dapper and openly gay, he approached reportage with a style all his own. He saw what others did not see, and he wrote about it with inimitable linguistic flare.

Ana Lessa-Schmidt's brilliant translation captures João do Rio's unique style of disregarding grammar to present the essence of a scene.

João do Rio was the pseudonym of the Brazilian journalist, short-story writer and playwright João Paulo Emílio Cristóvão dos Santos Coelho Barreto, a Brazilian author and journalist of African descent (August 5, 1881, Rio de Janeiro – June 23, 1921, Rio de Janeiro). He was elected on May 7, 1910 for the chair # 26 of Brazilian Academy of Letters. João do Rio was the author of many books, plays, essays, and articles. Among the few translated into English are "Vertiginous Life" and "Religions in Rio." Translator Ana Lessa-Schmidt, Ph.D., is a scholar of Brazilian culture, senior translation editor at New London Librarium, and translator of books by João do Rio and Machado de Assis.