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-Schmidts brilliant translation captures João do Rios unique style of disregarding grammar to present the essence of a scene.