The Short Story “Sambista at a Bar Table Drinking Beer with Tears” by Flávio Moreira da Costa

Abstract

Flávio Moreira da Costa is from Porto Alegre and lives in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. In addition to being a journalist and translator, he is an internationally acclaimed writer and has published over 20 books, which feature novels, short stories, and essays. As an editor he has also organized several anthologies such as Aquarelas do Brasil: contos da nossa música popular (“Watercolors from Brazil: Short Stories of Our Popular Music” – 2006), which showcases the historical interrelations between literature and music in Brazilian culture. Included in the aforementioned anthology, “Sambista at a Bar Table Drinking Beer with Tears” (1978) is one of many short stories written by Costa that dealspecifically with music as a significant theme. There are both implicit andexplicit references to songs by renowned composers such as HeriveltoMartins, Lupicínio Rodrigues, and Nelson Cavaquinho. The language of the story, a sad but humorous monologue about love and life, also represents the type of dialect that is characteristic of these and other popular carioca musicians, who traditionally come from the slums and hillsides of the so-called “Marvelous City,” home of samba and Carnival.