Heralded as the most important Brazilian novel of the century so far, this bestseller’s unique blend of magic and social realism won it three literary awards and global acclaim
‘I heard our grandmother asking what we were doing. ”Say something!” she demanded, threatening to tear out our tongues. Little did she know that one of us was holding her tongue in her hand.’
Deep in Brazil’s neglected Bahia hinterland, two sisters find an ancient knife beneath their grandmother’s bed and momentarily mystified by its power, decide to taste its metal. The shuddering violence that follows marks their lives and binds them together forever.
Heralded as a new masterpiece, this fascinating and gripping story about the lives of subsistence farmers in Brazil’s poorest region, three generations after the abolition of slavery, is at once fantastic and realist, covering themes of family, spirituality, slavery and its aftermath, and political struggle.
The author is the acclaimed Brazilians author Itamar Vieira Junior, who was born in Salvador, Bahia, in 1979. As a teenager, he lived in the state of Pernambuco, and later in the city of São Luís. He started studying geography at the undergraduate course at the Federal University of Bahia, being the first recipient of the Milton Santos Scholarship, dedicated to low-income black youth. He graduated in Geography and completed a master’s degree. He holds a doctorate in Ethnic and African Studies from the Federal University of Bahia with a study on the formation of quilombola communities in the interior of the Brazilian Northeast. Itamar is also a public servant at INCRA, the state agency responsible for conducting land reform in Brazil.
He will tour the United States to launch and discuss his new book:
Oct 1 – Brooklyn Book Festival
Oct 3 – Princeton University
Oct 5 – Columbia University
Oct 7 – NYPL
Oct 10 – Brown University
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