Staff Picks: Craft: Stories I Wrote for the Devil by Ananda Lima

Craft: Stories I Wrote for the Devil by Ananda Lima

He was sick of being blamed for things that could be fixed,
with a little more understanding. The Devil told them about
the brain, but they only ended up with the abomination of
lobotomy. 

 From Craft: Stories I Wrote for the Devil by Ananda Lima

After meeting the devil at a Halloween party in 1999, the main character in Ananda Lima’s debut short story collection feels the presence of the fallen angel at key moments in her life for the following two decades. 

Craft chronicles the real world experiences of a Brazilian writer living in New York City including family dramas, anxiety over evolving immigration policies, and concerns about Covid-19. Manifesting infrequently, her otherworldly-wise companion offers insights that seem uncharacteristically chill. 

She asked him if he had known, about the fleas, about the rats

-- had he tried to tell anyone? The Devil didn’t have to answer.

He knew then and he knew now. People never knew how to listen. 

The writer found herself angrier with the Devil than with God, if

there was one. Naturally, as intended, the Devil said, or maybe

she thought it herself. Wasn’t that the whole point of the Devil?

Someone for you to get angry at. 

 

Lima's inventive literary stories are an example of magical realism, a genre grounded in reality that includes fantasy elements. Like her main character, Ananda Lima is a fiction writer who was born in Brazil and lives in the United States, though Lima lives in Chicago rather than New York. 

Alicia Cavitt
Information Specialist