Whatever Happened to Dulce Veiga?: A B-Novel

By Caio Fernando Abreu

Book Overview

A forty-year-old Brazilian journalist reduced to living in a dilapidated building inhabited by a bizarre human fauna--fortune-tellers, transvestites, tango-loving Argentinean hustlers--is called upon to track down and write the story of Dulce Veiga, a famous singer who disappeared twenty years earlier on the eve of her first big show. Thus begins a mad race through an underground, nocturnal S?o Paulo among rock bands with eccentric names, feline reincarnations of Vita Sackville-West, ex-revolutionaries turned junkies, gay Pietas, echoes of Afro-Brazilian religions, and intimations of AIDS . . .

Constructed like a mystery, the novel unravels over a week, evoking a decadent and contaminated atmosphere in which the journalist's own search for meaning finds its expression in the elusive Dulce Veiga, who constantly appears to him as if in a dream, her arm pointing heavenward. Whatever Happened to Dulce Veiga? is a descent into the underworld of contemporary megalopolises where, like the inside of a huge TV, life intermingles with bits of music, film clips, and soap opera characters in a crazy and macabre dance, moving toward a possible catharsis.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0292705018
• ISBN13: 9780292705012
• Release Date: January 2001
• Publisher: University of Texas Press
• Length: 206 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.5" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

We need more translations of Caio's books.

Caio is known in Brazil by his short stories. Whatever Happened to Dulce Veiga is his first and only novel and it is wonderful. I started reading Caio when I was in College in Brazil and since then I have a extremely passion for his works. I read some of his stories more than five times because they are full of poetry and beauty. He creates a world at once familiar and fabulous. After reading all his short stories and his post mortem book, I read Dulce Veiga. I don't know how I took so long. It's witty and magical. I may say that I was truly sorry when the book ended. I wanted more and I wanted to call him and tell how much I did I enjoy it. It was too late. He had died a year before I read it. Nevertheless I am happy that the book will be released in the U.S. I do hope the American public can understand Caio and his stories.