Girl in the Photograph

Lygia Fagundes Telles (1923 ) was born in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and is one of the most respected authors in Brazilian literature. In 2005 she won the Cam es Prize, the greatest literary award in the Portuguese-speaking world, and she is one of only three female members of the Brazilian Academy of Letters. Margaret A. Neves has translated work by Jorge Amado, Antonio Torres, Moacyr Scliar, and Edgard T. Ribeiro. Elizabeth Lowe, associate director and associate scholar in the Center for Latin American Studies at the University of Florida, is the author of "The City in Brazilian Literature. "She has translated works by Machado de Assis, Clarice Lispector, and Antonio Lobo Antunes. Earl E. Fitz is professor of Portuguese, Spanish, and comparative literature at Vanderbilt University. He is the author of "Rediscovering the New World: Inter-American Literature in a Comparative Context, "and has translated works by Clarice Lispector, Lima Barreto, and Enrique Lefevre.

“Telles’ novels and short stories probe the psyche of the Sao Paulo bourgeoisie . . . Telles examines the moral decay of the middle classes, viewed through the experiences of young heroines who are trapped between their own dreams and their rigid social class.” —Isabel Vincent, The Globe and Mail“A master of communicating a sense of wonder and fantasy.” —Raymond L. Williams, Columbia Guide to the Latin American Novel Since 1945"Margaret Neves’s translation from the Portuguese sparkles with the energy, colloquialisms and inflections of youth ... nearly four decades after its original release, the concerns of The Girl in the Photograph are no less pressing. What power—or responsibility—does one have to one’s peers, or to one’s countrymen? What does it mean for a woman to be truly liberated? To what extent can one transcend ones past? As the currents of life pull the girls’ dramas forward to the novel’s cataclysmic end, these questions are hardly resolved. They remain a provocation, an invitation to look beyond the surface." —Words Without Borders