paulo da costa

bilingual author

  • Books
    • Beyond Bullfights and Ice Hockey
    • The Cartography of Being
    • The Green and Purple Skin of the World
    • The Scent of a Lie
    • The Midwife of Torment
  • Audio Books
    • The Scent of a Lie – audio
    • The Book of Catalogues
    • The Midwife of Torment – audio
    • Twenty Poems
    • notas de rodapé – audio
    • xx poemas
  • Livros
    • O Perfume da Mentira
    • notas de rodapé
  • Multimedia
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  • Books
    • Beyond Bullfights and Ice Hockey
    • The Cartography of Being
    • The Green and Purple Skin of the World
    • The Scent of a Lie
    • The Midwife of Torment
  • Audio Books
    • The Scent of a Lie – audio
    • The Book of Catalogues
    • The Midwife of Torment – audio
    • Twenty Poems
    • notas de rodapé – audio
    • xx poemas
  • Livros
    • O Perfume da Mentira
    • notas de rodapé
  • Multimedia
    • Podcasts
      • Book Excerpts
      • Interviews
      • Lectures
      • Readings
    • Videos
  • Biography
    • Bibliography
  • Blog
    • Links
  • Events
  • Translation & Editing Services
  • Links
  • Contact
  • Store
    • Purchase
    • Checkout
  • TEACHING
  • 0 items

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  • Blog,  Interviewed,  News,  Reviews

    James H. Gray Award for Short Nonfiction

    June 8, 2020 /

    WGA CNF Award HR Winners of the 2020 Alberta Literary Awards The Writers’ Guild of Alberta is pleased to announce the winners of the 2020 Alberta Literary Awards. This year’s award winners were announced in an online video release on June 4th. The video is available to watch on our Facebook page and YouTube channel. This celebration marks the 38th anniversary of the Alberta Literary Awards and brought together writers from across Alberta.The Alberta Literary Awards were created by the Writers’ Guild of Alberta in 1982 to recognize excellence in writing by Alberta authors. This year, jurors deliberated over 220 submissions to select winners in the following eight categories. James…

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    paulodacosta 2 Comments

    You May Also Like

    Poetic & Lyrical – impressions by Irene Marques

    January 12, 2016

    Beneath Thin Skin – BC Bookworld feature

    June 6, 2013

    Tricked by the dusk – Toronto Star

    November 16, 2012
  • Blog,  News,  Reviews,  Reviews - M&T

    Canadian Writers Abroad – reviews Midwife of Torment

    October 16, 2017 /

      The Midwife of Torment & Other Stories, Guernica Editions: 2017, 202 pages. Reviewed by Irene Marques Calling Us into Seeing and Being More: “Me” and the World The Midwife of Torment & Other Stories by paulo da costa is a book of short stories, or sudden fictions [under 1,000 words], divided into six parts: “Affections,” “Slowness,” “Aqua Libera,” “Beneath Our Beds,” “Force” and “Fathers.” In this collection, we find provoking thoughts unveiled slowly in an incantatory, lyrical language, revealing our deepest yearnings, frustrations, losses, insufficiencies, and happiness(es), too. His work makes us see, feel and be more: to have profound insights into our lives and the world; to understand…

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    paulodacosta 0 Comments

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    Impressive Stories – Edmonton Journal

    November 23, 2012

    Poetic & Lyrical – impressions by Irene Marques

    January 12, 2016

    All My Relations: Reflections on Home

    December 11, 2016
  • Blog,  Reviews - B&I

    Poetic & Lyrical – impressions by Irene Marques

    January 12, 2016 /

    Irene Marques on Beyond Bullfights & Ice Hockey (essays) Paulo da Costa has a poetic and lyrical voice that is beautiful. It is an appeasing murmur conducive to meditation putting into question the acceptance of the mundane or the fashions of the moment which are often guided by economic pressures that erase us all under a blanket of sameness. It is a voice that wants the power of the word to remain pure so that it can reach us at a deep level and have an impact that goes well beyond the facades of easy, cheap rhetoric. It is a writing that asks you to slow down, to pause, in order…

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    paulodacosta 0 Comments

    You May Also Like

    Tricked by the dusk – Toronto Star

    November 16, 2012

    New essay in Queen’s Quarterly

    September 16, 2016

    Pleasant Troubles

    September 7, 2013
  • Beyond Bullfights & Ice Hockey,  News,  Reviews - B&I

    The Guest who refuses to be polite – impressions by Emanuel Melo

    December 20, 2015 /

    I’m hanging out with paulo da costa these days. On the crowded subway ride to work in the morning and again in the evening on the way home I listen to him; those around me don’t. But I prefer listening to him when I get inside my solitude, sitting on my sofa, in the quiet of my library, where I can be attentive without the pull of people’s chatter. Even at four in the morning, when I cannot sleep, he is still talking. Non-stop. He is the guest who refuses to go home at a decent hour and so, to be polite, I let him speak his words. He gives…

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    paulodacosta 0 Comments
  • Blog,  News,  Reviews,  Reviews - G&P

    Malahat Review – Seamless Stories Haunt

    December 12, 2013 /

    The January 2014 issue (#185) of the University of Victoria’s Malahat Review features a review of The Green and Purple Skin of the World.   Fiction Review by Norma Lundberg The Green and Purple Skin of the World: Stories by paulo da costa (Freehand, 2013). Paperbound, 208 pp., $21.95     The sixteen stories in this collection proceed so seamlessly a reader might initially suspect them of being slight—a smooth skin of words, a faint echo from the title. But just as our skin is only the surface of our complex bodies, these stories are alive with characters in their own complicated worlds. They slowly enter the reader and haunt…

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    paulodacosta 0 Comments

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    Enclosures

    June 11, 2022

    New essay in Queen’s Quarterly

    September 16, 2016

    Beneath Thin Skin – BC Bookworld feature

    June 6, 2013
  • Blog,  News,  Reviews,  Reviews - G&P

    The Green and Purple Skin of the World – The Quill & Quire Review

    June 20, 2013 /

    The May issue of Quill & Quire features a review of The Green and Purple Skin of the World. The world described in paulo da costa’s second book of short fiction is a sensual one. A poet and translator, da costa favours imagistic language to explore characters’ relationships to one another and to nature, depicting a scenic tapestry of interpersonal phenomena that spans love, war, aging, and death. The book’s 16 stories tend to be brief, but the longer and more complex pieces are the most satisfying. A prioritization of setting and atmosphere over plot is established in the first story, “Flies,” in which two older Portuguese men lament the…

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    paulodacosta 0 Comments

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    All My Relations: Reflections on Home

    December 11, 2016

    New essay in Queen’s Quarterly

    September 16, 2016

    Sharp and True – a book review by the Coastal Spectator

    May 23, 2013
  • Blog,  News,  Reviews,  Reviews - G&P

    Sharp and True – a book review by the Coastal Spectator

    May 23, 2013 /

    Collection’s stories are sharp and true May 23, 2013 The Green and Purple Skin of the World By paulo da costa Freehand Books, 208 pages, $21.95 Reviewed by Yasuko Thanh Born in Angola, raised in Portugal, paulo da costa won the Commonwealth First Book Prize in 2003 for his collection The Scent of a Lie. In The Green and Purple Skin of the World, his first book of short fiction in 10 years, language and its power form a thread through many of the stories and words are highlighted in entertaining characters such as Dona Branca, who collects newspaper clippings of disasters and glues them in an old photo album.…

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    paulodacosta 0 Comments

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    Impressive Stories – Edmonton Journal

    November 23, 2012

    New essay in Queen’s Quarterly

    September 16, 2016

    Interview in Portuguese-American Review

    December 21, 2015
  • Blog,  Reviews,  Reviews - G&P

    Unhurried & Meditative – A National Post review

    May 10, 2013 /

    paulo da costa is concerned with the passage of time and its effects on generational attitudes and memories. Da costa’s writing is recondite, preferring a lyrical, almost poetic style of narration. The stories in The Green and Purple Skin of the World (Freehand Books, 206 pp; $21.95) have an unhurried, meditative aspect that suits the material, but can also be wearisome over the course of an entire collection. The Table is typical of many of the stories in the book. Not much happens on the level of plot; the author is more concerned with dissecting the relationship between a mother and her son, and using that relationship to examine the…

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    paulodacosta 2 Comments

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    Obligatory reading for the North American Luso Diaspora – impressions by Diniz Borges

    December 8, 2015

    Poetic & Lyrical – impressions by Irene Marques

    January 12, 2016

    Focus On Victoria – Magazine – w/ author paulo da costa

    July 8, 2017
  • Blog,  News

    Literary Bites in Bits: A Short Story List by paulo da costa

    May 2, 2013 /

    Each book in this selection is sliced in bite-sized portions, yet none miss any of the essential vitamins and minerals, delivering satisfying nourishment despite their small portions. Think of them as power-bars. These six books share in common a succinct, power-charged delivery of texts in condensed servings that leave me purring and yummying with delight. For those readers, like me, who appreciate snacking, these works exemplify the type of book I carry around in my shoulder bag, to sneak, peek and bite into, while waiting in lines, while moving along the day-to-day river of busyness. (…) Complete feature here

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    paulodacosta 0 Comments

    You May Also Like

    Focus On Victoria – Magazine – w/ author paulo da costa

    July 8, 2017

    Sharp and True – a book review by the Coastal Spectator

    May 23, 2013

    Tricked by the dusk – Toronto Star

    November 16, 2012
  • Blog,  Reviews,  Reviews - S&L

    Impressive Stories – Edmonton Journal

    November 23, 2012 /

     

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    paulodacosta 0 Comments

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    Beneath Thin Skin – BC Bookworld feature

    June 6, 2013

    Viva Da Costa

    November 22, 2012

    Unhurried & Meditative – A National Post review

    May 10, 2013
 Older Posts

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The Midwife of Torment & Other Stories

Recent Posts

  • Keynote Address & Teaching the Short Story State of Mind at AWC
  • WGA 2023 Literary Award Readings
  • The Edge of Winter Exhibition – Art Walk
  • Enclosures, Short-Listed for the 2023 Alberta Literary Awards
  • O Perfume da Mentira em destaque nos Olhos nos Livros Blog

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Comments

  • Emanuel Melo on New creative essay in Queen’s Quarterly
  • Shawn McGuire on James H. Gray Award for Short Nonfiction
  • Emanuel Melo on New creative essay in Gavea-Brown
  • Emanuel Melo on New Creative Essay in Prairie Fire
  • Anna on The Scent of a Lie

Beyond Bullfights & Ice Hockey

  • Essays
  • Interviews – B&I
  • Reviews – B&I

The Midwife of Torment

  • Sudden Fictions – M&T
  • Interviews – M&T
  • Reviews – M&T
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