Short stories
Contos gauchescos
Not translated into English
João Simões Lopes Neto · 1912
Opening lines
— Eu tropeava, nesse tempo.
“I was a drover in those days.”
Translation by Erostrate
Text quoted from pt.wikisource.org
Synopsis
A traveller crosses the countryside of Rio Grande do Sul with his guide, Blau Nunes, an eighty-eight-year-old vaqueano who has kept all his teeth, a former quartermaster sergeant in the troops of Bento Gonçalves during the Farrapos War. As they go, Blau tells stories, and the narrator relays them in the speech of the countryside: a large sum in gold lost on the road, a rivalry in love that breaks out at a horse race, a drama of jealousy around a young girl, a host who never stops serving maté, a message carried to the emperor.
Context
The collection was published in Pelotas in 1912 by Echenique & Cia, two years after a songbook from the same region and a year before legends of the South. Augusto Meyer noted that the author presents Blau and then gives him the floor. Written in the gaúcho dialect, which the critic Álvaro Lins held to be a serious obstacle, it found a wide audience only after Augusto Meyer's critical edition from Globo, in 1949, with a glossary by Aurélio Buarque de Hollanda. According to Extra Classe, Henrique de Freitas Lima brought six of its stories to the screen.
Who it is for
A short collection, but written in a dense regional speech: the current editions carry a glossary that must be used.
Prizes and reception
Confined to Pelotas during its author's lifetime, the book has been regarded since 1949 as the summit of gaúcho regionalism.
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The pages consulted to check this page.