Book Publication Announcement: The Bankruptcy by Júlia Lopes de Almeida, co-translated by Postdoctoral Fellow Cintia Kozonoi VEZZANI

Tokyo College Postdoctoral Fellow Dr. Cintia Kozonoi VEZZANI is the co-translator, alongside Senior Content R&D at Sapienship Jason Rhys PARRY, of the first novel by the Brazilian writer Júlia Lopes de Almeida translated into English. The open-access PDF of the book is available on the UCL Press website.

To celebrate its publication, Tokyo College will host a symposium on October 26th, gathering the translators and editor of the novel together with scholars in translation and literary studies to discuss the state of world literature today and the role played by translation in Brazil, Japan and beyond.

For further details and registration for this upcoming event, please visit this link.

Description of the book:

Set in the early years of the Old Republic after the abolition of slavery, Júlia Lopes de Almeida's The Bankruptcy depicts the rise and fall of a wealthy coffee exporter against a kaleidoscopic background of glamour, poverty, seduction, and financial speculation. The novel introduces readers to a turbulent period in Brazilian history seething with new ideas about democracy, women’s emancipation, and the role of religion in society. Originally published in 1901, its prescient critiques of financial capitalism and the patriarchal family remain relevant today.

In her lifetime, Júlia Lopes de Almeida was compared to Machado de Assis, said to be the most important Brazilian writer of the nineteenth century. She was also considered for the inaugural list of members of the Brazilian Academy of Letters, but was excluded because of her gender. In the decades after her death, her work was largely forgotten. This publication, a winner of the English PEN award, marks the first novel-length translation of Almeida’s writing into English, including an Introduction to the novel and a Translators' Preface, and accompanies a general rediscovery of her extraordinary body of work in Brazil.