From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
João Manuel Rosado Barreiros (born July 31,
1952), also known by the pseudonym José de Barros, is
a Portuguese science fiction
writer, editor, translator and critic.
He graduated in Philosophy from the University of Lisbon in 1977, and
has been teaching it in high school since 1975. His experiences in
education eventually led him to write a semi-autobiographical satire titled "The Test" in
2000.
Fiction
Barreiros's writing style, influenced by that of Robert
Silverberg and James Tiptree,
Jr, is distinctively sardonic and shows a marked tendency
towards satire and black comedy.
His plots frequently employ unlikeable protagonists in dystopic settings, where they are faced with
the brutality of everyday life and are often thwarted by their own
actions in the end. The stories tend to offer extremely graphic
depictions of violence, and utterly reject political correctness and its
icons — Walt Disney
and Sesame
Street are frequent targets of derision by Barreiros, for
example, and he has gone so far as to cast Big Bird analogues as the principal antagonists in A
verdadeira invasão dos marcianos.
Some of Barreiros's work has been translated into English, Spanish, French, Italian and
Serbian.
He has twice won the Brazilian Nova Award, offered by
fans to the best foreign short story published in South America, for
"Um Dia com Júlia na Necrosfera" (in 1992) and "A Arder Caíram os
Anjos" (in 1994).[1]
Miscellaneous activity
João Barreiros's book and film reviews have appeared in
publications such as Público, O Independente, Ler and
Os Meus Livros. The mercilessness of Barreiros's criticism
earned him a reputation among Portuguese science fiction fans, and his titanium nib fountain pen gained
legendary status as a result.
During the 1980s and early 1990s, Barreiros edited two science
fiction and fantasy labels for Editora Clássica and Gradiva. Among
the writers he introduced to a Portuguese audience are Iain M. Banks, William Gibson, Peter Straub, Dan Simmons and A. A. Attanasio. Publishers usually
balked at Barreiros's unorthodox picks, and so books like Stephen
R. Donaldson's Lord
Foul's Bane, Nancy A. Collins's Sunglasses
After Dark and James Blaylock's The Last Coin
were translated but never published.
Barreiros also co-founded Simetria — Portuguese Science Fiction
and Fantasy Association in 1995 (he later broke from it, in 1999),
and the Portuguese Association for the Fantastic in the Arts in
2005.
Bibliography
- Duas fábulas tecnocráticas (collection, 1977)
- O caçador de brinquedos e outras histórias
(collection, 1994)
- Terrarium: Um romance em mosaicos (with Luís
Filipe Silva, 1996)
- Disney no céu entre os Dumbos (2001 [online], 2006
[print])
- A verdadeira invasão dos marcianos (2004)
- A bondade dos estranhos: Projecto Candyman (2007)[2]
References
- ^
Silva, Cesar. Todos os Novas. Retrieved
on 2009-08-11.
- ^
João Barreiros at
Bibliowiki. Retrieved on 2009-08-11.
External
links
Fiction