Author
Bruna Kalil Othero
Bruna Kalil Othero
Bruna Kalil Othero is a Brazilian writer and translator working across Portuguese, English, and Spanish. She is the author of a novel, three poetry collections, and a book of short fiction, and has edited two anthologies dedicated to Brazilian women writers. Her work has been published internationally and has received multiple literary prizes; she was named to the 2024 Forbes Brazil Under 30 list. A Ph.D. candidate in Portuguese and literary translation at Indiana University, she is currently writing a biography of Hilda Hilst for Companhia das Letras.
Translator
Adrian Minckley
Adrian Minckley
Adrian Minckley is a literary translator from Portuguese into English. She won the PEN/Heim Translation Grant in 2021 for Márcia Barbieri’s The Whore. Her translations have been published by Two Lines, Open Letter Books, Sublunary Editions, and Words Without Borders, among others. She lives and works long the waning waters of the Rio Grande.
Original language
Portuguese
Publishing status
Translation extract
About the book
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About the book
A bestseller in Brazil, The Porno President is an absurdist psychosexual dramatisation of Brazilian political history. Largely derived from real events, the story of a far-right politician turned military dictator in a tropical country called “Tumzil” explores political and sexual repression, homophobia, corruptive power, and institutional violence. It is a carnivalesque, indulgent, bizarre, hilarious book full of depravity with parallels with contemporary politics in the Western English-speaking world.
What our readers say
“The Porno President is an exhilarating work of satire and parody that skilfully juxtaposes many different tones and registers in a way that is fluent and consistently entertaining. Othero is as good when she is writing lurid pornography as when she is mimicking political campaign speak, national mythmaking or journalism.
This is an exceptionally good translation, bold, original and incredibly creative, taking liberties where necessary to preserve the spark and tone of the original without being slavishly literal. Minckley’s translation surprises at every turn with its wit, neologisms and deft contrast of lowbrow, even pornographic language with officialese and more literary tones.
The project is especially refreshing because in the world of literary fiction, especially in translation, anything considered popular or lowbrow, even when used to make political, aesthetic, literary or philosophical points, is often passed aside in favour of works considered to be more in stylistic ‘good taste’.”
–Rahul Bery
Rights available
World English