Cosmos Latinos: An Anthology of Science Fiction From Latin America and Spain by Bell Andrea L. & Molina-Gavilan Yolanda

Author:Bell, Andrea L. & Molina-Gavilan, Yolanda [Bell, Andrea L. & Molina-Gavilan, Yolanda]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction, Anthology
Publisher: Wesleyan University Press
Published: 2003-07-31T04:00:00+00:00

André Carneiro

BRAZIL

Considered one of the founding fathers of Brazilian science fiction, André Carneiro (1922-) was born and educated in the small town of Atibaia, outside of Sao Paulo. In spite of his stature within the SF community, cultivating the genre has been but one of his many interests, albeit a much-loved one. His adult life has always been intimately associated with the arts, and in Brazil he is a wellknown experimental filmmaker, painter, photographer, and writer. One of his films. Solitude (Solidäo), was selected to represent Brazil in the Tenth International Film Festival in Glasgow, Scotland, in 1951, and he has received several awards over the years for his photographic and literary work. As a mainstream author, Carneiro is best known for his poetry (see his collection Fuilspace: André Carneiro’s Poems: 1958-1963 [Espaçopleno: Poemas de André Carneiro 19581963,1966]) and for his novels of psychosocial criticism, written in a style that has been compared to Aldous Huxley’s.

As an SF author, Carneiro is celebrated for his essay “Introduction to the Study of Science Fiction” (“Introduçâo ao estudo da ‘science-fiction,’” 1967), for the novel Free Swimming Pool {Piscina livre, 1980) and its sequel The Art of Love {Amorquia, 1991), and for the short story collections Diary of the Lost Spaceship {Diario da nave perdida, 1963) and The Man Who Guessed Right (0 homem que adivinhava, 1966). His short novel Darkness {A escuridâo), which first appeared in Diario da nave perdida, is an end-of-the world story where only blind people are able to cope on an Earth suddenly devoid of light. It is considered an international classic of SF, having won the Brazilian Hugo, that is, the Nova science fiction award for best short fiction of 1995 (in a reprint). Carneiro’s stories have been translated into Spanish, English, Japanese, French, Italian, and German.

Carneiro has always requested that his science fiction be judged as literature, and in fact feels that the designation “science fiction” has done tremendous harm because it isolates writers and stigmatizes their work. Be that as it may, he is much celebrated among Brazil’s SF fandom, where his highly original short stories and novels are kept alive.

The story we choose to present here, “Brain Transplant,” was initially written for the Brazilian edition of Playboy, but was rejected by the editors. It was first published in Argentina by Distar in 1978 as part of an anthology that featured stories by Brian Aldiss, Fritz Leiber, and Damon Knight, among other international SF authors. The story was later featured in a collection of Carneiro’s SF stories: “Hieronymus’s Machine and Other Stories” (A máquina de Hyerónimus e outras historias, 1997). “Brain Transplant” presents a world in which technology allows for the sensory perception of another human being’s thoughts. This possibility, besides erasing old signs of identity like gender and family relations, ends up blurring reality itself to the point of being unrecognizable. The story’s conclusion proposes (as an antidote to political propaganda?) that the only way to discern between reality and illusion is to rely on one’s own physical senses of sight, sound, and touch.

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