ALICE IN THUNDERLAND & OTHER STORIES
translated by Margaret Jull Costa
In Alice in Thunderland & Other Stories, Teolinda Gersão, one of Portugal’s most distinctive writers, turns an unsettling eye on the hidden lives of ordinary people. Her stories begin in the familiar world and then, almost imperceptibly, open onto the dreamlike or absurd, revealing quiet acts of resistance.
With extraordinary precision and economy, Gersão explores the shifting boundaries between tenderness and violence, silence and speech, transforming the domestic into a surreal landscape where women carve out spaces of their own. From a bank clerk whose obsession with a luxurious coat unleashes her animal instincts to an Alice who steps out of the story that has confined her, Gersão’s characters find ways to challenge the boundaries of the world around them.