Dear Mr. Tepper,

If you are going to write a story about Brazil, please spell-check all your names and foreign words before making it public. PLEASE, double and triple check the words you're not familiar with. Don't spell the name of the city I was born in "São Paolo". It's São Paulo. It would not have been hard to find it out. It's not like it's an obscure little town; it's the largest city in South America and one of the largest in the world.

This mistake may seem little to you, but EXTREMELY annoying to me because I am sick and tired of reading stories in major publications about my country and city and constantly finding spelling errors that could have easily been avoided. To me, this kind of mistake undermines everything else you say in your story. It makes me not want to read it.

When you're writing a story of this kind, you must be culturally sensible. Please remember that.

And, editors, shame on you for not catching this glaring error.

Sincerely,

Joice Biazoto

ps: I at least appreciate the fact that you used the tilde in "São".

This man talks about Brasil in an inteligent way and this is refreshing. I am used to northamericans talk about Brasil without grasping the true nature of the Brazilian way of life. Thanks Mr. Anderson.

Is another translation (considered better by some) of the De Assis novel referred to as "Epitaph of a Small Winner"... just to put it out there.

You might also mention Chico Buarque's marvelous Budapeste, which has, after all, been translated into English recently. I pesonally found Caetano's book, which I read in Portuguese, meandering, self-absorbed and muito cabeça.

I do have one reprimand for you: An article on Brazilian literature that does not mention João Guimarães-Rosa -- who has yet to find a competent English translation -- is like an article on Irish literature that does not mention Beckett and Joyce.

Grande Sertão: Veredas is a work of near-Joycean difficulty, but the novellas of Corpo de Baile would be an excellent place to start translating.

I personally get a lot of pleasure out of regional writers of the early to mid-20th century, such as Antônio Alcântara de Machado here in São Paulo -- think John Fante and Bukowski, who are both enormously popular here in pocket-edition translations -- and -- a recent discovery -- the northeastern writer Ariano Suassuna, whose picareque novel A Pedra do Reino was recently brought to the stage by Antunues Filho and the Teatro Macumaíma here.

Other favorites of mine: Mario de Andrade's Sangue de Coca-Cola (Coca-Cola in the Blood) and just about anything by Judeo-Gaúcho novelist and physician Moacyr Scliar of Porto Alegre, such as Centaur in the Garden or The Majesty of Xingu.

And Ruben Fonseca, the Tropicalist Raymond Chandler. Anytime and anywhere. It would be great to see someone do justice to his Mandrake detective series someday in the cinema.

It is a shame that practically none of this world-class literature is available in English.

Perhaps if it were, we would not be so quick to think of Brazil as a perpetually inchoate mess. There is actually quite a deep civilization going on down here, even if not everyone has a two-car garage, good English or Intel inside quite yet.

And a deep literary culture to go with it.

Thank you, however, for omitting Paulo Coelho from your list of readable Brazilian authors. Yech.

I think that the text by Anderson Tepper was very well written. There where some mistakes on it, ok, but please ask a brazillian to write with perfection about english literature and culture. We too are overloaded with prejudice against americans. That´s the human condition. Some people try to avoid it better than others. I live in Belo Horizonte, and lived the same situation in my city´s bus station.

We brazillians are tired of being misrepresented by the americans. Maybe americans are tired of being misrepresented too. What can I do about it? I study and study, trying to correct it. And this has to do with correct spelling of the names, and about knowing the name of brazillian capital (Brasilia, not Buenos Aires!).

I wrote "english literature and culture" but the correct is "american literature and culture", related to english language.

First, my compliments to Colin Brayton for his excellent post -- love his comments on the Mandrake series and also the author's omission of Paulo Coelho.

Second, I understand one of the letter writer's frustration about "Sao Paolo" -- very annoying. Tho I'm amazed they got the "Sao" right (sorry, don't know which keys to use for the accent over the "a"). I get very annoyed with the frequent "Paolo" for "Paulo" and the refusal of English speakers (American, Brits, Australians, etc.) to understand that "j" in Portuguese is NOT NOT NOT prounounced the way it is in Spanish. The Portuguese name "Jose," for example, is NOT prounounced the same way as it is in Spanish.

Anyway, as a Brazilian immigrant to the US who's spent years having to deal with dum comments from Americans about my native country, I'd like to thank the author and Salon for publishing a very good piece focusing on Brazil's literature -- something only discussed by academics. Lately all articles on Brazil in the press have been about violence only - when it's not that, it's about football or carnival. Or the Amazon, that's it.

I haven't returned to my native country since 2000 and have been missing it very much - this article has just intensified it and made me want to plan for a return visit this year.

Skwisgaar Skwigelf taller than a tree,

Toki Wartooth not a bumblebee,

William Murderface Murderface Murderface,

Pickles the Drummer doodily doo ding dong doodily doodily doo,

Nathan Explosion.

I felt the same way about it - that it was self-aggrandizing and meandering. But since I read it in translation, I was unsure of whether that was Caetano's fault or the fault of the translation. Now I know for sure.

A question for Brazilians - is Caetano really as big of a pompus ass as he seems to be? It seems like his sister is the real cool one in that family. Also, how has Gilberto Gil been doing, in your opinion, as Minister of Culture?

I'm always curious about how American's perceptions of these things jibe with Brazilian realities.