| Lygia Fagundes Telles |
Lygia Fagundes Telles
and Manuel Alegre
Winter 2008
The Brazilian novelist and short story writer Lygia Fagundes Telles and the Portuguese writer Manuel Alegre met each other at the Book Biennial in Rio de Janeiro, which took place last September. Alegre is renowned in Portugal as a novelist, poet, and public figure with a long engagement in politics, from his early days as a law student opposing the 40-year dictatorship of Antonio de Oliveria Salazar (1933–74) to his imprisonment and exile in Algiers, to his running for president in the 2006 Portuguese elections. Alegre traveled to Brazil to participate in the launching of his book Cão como nós (A Dog Like Us), a lyrical memoir featuring his family’s relationship with Kurica, an epagneul breton, their companion over many years.