The queen of the prisons of Greece : a novel

This is the final novel of one of the most innovative, comic Brazilian writers of the last century. It takes the form of an anonymous high school science teacher's journal about an unpublished novel written by his deceased lover, a young woman named Julia Marquezim Enone. Her novel's central character Maria da Franpa, is a destitute and mentally unstable woman at odds with the Brazilian social welfare system, from which she is trying to claim benefits for time spent in a psychiatric hospital. The journal represents the science teacher's attempt to understand Julia's novel and, in the process, Julia herself and the relationship they once shared. Rather than providing him with comfort and a better understanding of his beloved, the teacher's explorations create an ever-widening circle of questions and fears about himself, her, and finally any attempt to understand anything about anyone. But the narrator's failures become the reader's comic delights. Reminiscent of Flann O'Brien, Manuel Puig, and Laurence Sterne, with this novel Osman Lins takes his rightful place among the major figures of twentieth-century fiction. Translated by Adria Frizzi.

This is the final novel of one of the most innovative, comic Brazilian writers of this century. It takes the form of an anonymous high school science teacher's journal about an unpublished novel written by his deceased lover, a young woman named Julia Marquezim Enone. Her novel's central character, Maria da Franca, is a destitute and mentally unstable woman at odds with the Brazilian social welfare system, from which she is trying to claim benefits for time spent in a psychiatric hospital. The journal represents the science teacher's attempt to understand Julia's novel and, the process, Julia herself and the relationship they once shared. Rather than providing him with comfort and a better understanding of his beloved, the teacher's explorations create an ever-widening circle of questions and fears about himself, her, and finally any attempt to understand anything about anyone. But the narrator's failures become the reader's comic delights.

Publishers Weekly

The final novel by Brazilian author Lins, best known for his novel Avolovara, The Queen of the Prisons of Greece is sublime; a must-read for serious writers and readers alike. Completed two years before his death in 1978 and set in mid-1970s Brazil, it is written in the form of a diary kept by an anonymous narrator in order to better understand the unpublished novel of-and his relationship to-his recently deceased lover, Julia Marquezim Enone. Her novel details the attempts of heroine Maria de Frana to get benefits from Brazil's antagonistic welfare system after spending time in a mental institution, and the narrator's determined analysis of Julia's manuscript draws the reader into a mimetic funhouse of exciting, intentional confusions. In Lins's novel, the distinctions between authors and characters, between maniacally obsessive fictions and what they supposedly represent, are so fuzzy that it becomes impossible for the reader to tell what is real, including the integrity of text. Ultimately signifying that the concepts of truth and understanding are the cruelest of lies, The Queen of the Prisons of Greece proves Lins to be an author worthy of the canonization he deserves-if only for his ability to challenge and stimulate the mind. (Dec.)

This is the final novel of one of the most innovative, comic Brazilian writers of this century. It takes the form of an anonymous high school science teachers journal about an unpublished novel written by his deceased lover, a young woman named Julia Marquezim Enone. Her novels central character, Maria da Franca, is a destitute and mentally unstable woman at odds with the Brazilian social welfare system, from which she is trying to claim benefits for time spent in a psychiatric hospital. The journal represents the science teachers attempt to understand Julias novel and, in the process, Julia herself and the relationship they once shared. Rather than providing him with comfort and a better understanding of his beloved, the teachers explorations create an ever-widening circle of questions and fears about himself, her, and finally any attempt to understand anything about anyone. But the narrators failures become the readers comic delights. Reminiscent of Flann OBrien, Manuel Puig, and Laurence Sterne, with this novel Osman Lins takes his rightful place among the major figures of twentieth-century fiction. A Brazilian keeps a journal as he reads anunpublished novel by a dead writer. The journalrepresents his attempt to understand the novel andthrough it, its author, a woman with whom he was havingan affair. By the author of Avalovara