João Paulo Cuenca


João Paulo Cuenca is a Brazilian writer, considered to be among the new generation of promising Brazilian authors. In 2012, the English literary magazine Granta named him as one of the 20 best Brazilian writers under 40. In 2007, he was selected by the Hay Festival as one of the most talented 39 Latin American writers under 39. His striking eloquence creates scenarios which change effortlessly between common surroundings and surreal incidents.

Career

João Paulo Cuenca was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 1978. He is the author of “Body present”, “The Mastroianni Day”, “The only happy ending for a love story is an accident” and “The day I found out I was dead”. His novels have been translated into eight languages and had its rights sold to eleven countries so far. He is a weekly columnist for major Brazilian newspapers and magazines since 2003 and now writes for Folha de São Paulo, the biggest national newspaper. An anthology of his articles, “The last dawn”, was published in 2012.
In 2007, he was selected by the Hay Festival and by the organisers of the Bogotá World Book Capital as one of the 39 highest profile Latin American writers under the age of 39. He has also been selected for the very first ever issue Best of Young Brazilian Novelists of the literary magazine Granta in 2012. In recent years, he's been writing plays, film and television scripts. "The Death of J.P. Cuenca", which took part at the first Venice Biennale College Production Lab, is his first feature film as a writer/director and was premiered at Rio and São Paulo International Film Festivals and had its European premiere at main competition selection of the prestigious CPH:DOX in Denmark.
He participated in lectures as a guest writer in PUC-Rio, UFRJ, Sorbonne Nouvelle - Paris III, Columbia University, Princeton University, Heidelberg University, Salzburg University, Yale University, Brown University, UCLA, Stanford, University of Illinois, among many others. He was invited to festivals such as Hay Festival Cartagena de Indias, Berlin International Literature Festival, Frankfurt Book Fair, Xalapa Hay Festival in Mexico, Guadalajara Book Fair, London Brazilian Festival, Americas Society Symposium on Brazilian Literature, Festival Vivamerica, Correntes d'Escritas etc. He was the chief curator of the Bahia Book Fair in 2013 and of the Belo Horizonte Book Fair in 2014. He Won a Civitella Ranieri Writing Fellowship in 2013 and was a Writer-in-Residence at the Programa Avançado de Cultura Contemporânea of UFRJ in 2014.
Besides writing books, Cuenca worked as a journalist and columnist for various major Brazilian newspapers and magazines, among them »O Globo«. An anthology of his chronicles and columns appeared only recently in the volume »A última madrugada«. João Paulo Cuenca’s texts have already appeared in anthologies inside and outside of Brazil.

Novels