The Ambivalent | Paulo Scott | Granta Magazine

The Ambivalent

Paulo Scott

Translated by Jethro Soutar

‘He not only sees the World Cup as a ceasefire, but also as a series of sleights of hand that hide what’s really going on, political debauchery, spin and chicanery.’

Paulo Scott

Paulo Scott was born in 1966 in Porto Alegre, southern Brazil, and grew up in a working-class neighbourhood. At university, Scott was an active member of the student political movement and was also involved in Brazil's re-democratisation process. For ten years he taught law at university in Porto Alegre. He has now published four books of fiction and four of poetry. He also translates from English. He moved to Rio de Janeiro in 2008 to focus on writing full-time.

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Translated by Jethro Soutar

Jethro Soutar is a writer and translator of Spanish and Portuguese. He is co-editor of The Football Crónicas, a collection of translated short-form writing from Latin America, and a co-founder of Ragpicker Press. His recent translations include Juan Tomás Ávila Laurel’s Arde el monte de noche (By Night the Mountain Burns) and Frei Beto’s Hotel Brasil, published in English under the same title.

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