“But just, let’s say, the closing of a book”: the last night of the world by Ray Bradbury

Abstract

This paper presents our translation into Brazilian Portuguese of the short story “The Last Night of the World by Ray Bradbury (1920-2012), originally published in the collection The Illustrated Man (1951). The story is set through a couple’s dialogue in which both are aware that the world will end that very night. The preface to the translation presents a brief parallel between the context of the original story, the United States in the 1950’s in the beginning of the Cold War, and the current context of the covid-19 pandemic and of politic polarization.