The Taker and Other Stories (Hardcover)

from deadmanjones

Loaded with violence and sex as most of these stories are, it is generally the mundane tone of each character's narration that shocks and entertains most. In every story Fonseca derides romanticized views of crime, wealth or romance itself - but usually all three.

from jamesapt10

The Taker is a collection of dark short stories. Ruben Forseca forces us all to remember our own baseness. Ideas we would never tell our closest friends take life in this collection of tales.

from klarusu

This is a great collection of short stories from a brilliant small US publisher devoted to acquiring and translating diverse contemporary foreign language works that would otherwise remain overlooked by the English-speaking reading public. These stories, set in Brazil, all contain a central theme...

from TimFootman

Bleak, takes-no-prisoners accounts of the less carnivalesque side of Brazilian society. An obvious cross-media comparison is the movie City of God, but Fonseca is more reined-in in his storytelling style (although since this is a translation, one never knows). Think Carver, Chandler, even Hemingw...

from carioca

Ah, I hold this book close to my heart - my first Rubem Fonseca. This collection of short stories has a place of honor in my bookshelf. It is undoubtedly the work of Fonseca: gritty, urban, criminal, underground, violent, sexual, perverse, ironic, desolate and so on. A fantastic example of his st...