Letters from a Seducer

A wild, grotesque satire of male sexuality and pleasure-seeking from one of Brazil's most important modern writers - part Clarice Lispector, part Marquis de Sade

Karl is a wealthy libertine who seeks an answer to life’s mysteries through sex. Frustrated and amoral, he composes a sequence of depraved letters to his chaste sister, Cordélia. His story becomes entwined with that of the impoverished poet Stamatius, who finds his letters in the trash, as Hilst sets off an ingenious play of language and identity that parodies the most gruesome excesses of masculine sexuality.

An endlessly playful novel that pilfers from Joyce as much as de Sade, Letters from a Seducer is a work of perverse genius by one of Brazil's greatest modern writers.

Part of the Pushkin Press Classics series: timeless storytelling by icons of literature, hand-picked from around the globe

Translated by John Keene