Acclaimed as the most important Brazilian novel of the century so far, this best-seller’s unique blend of magic and social realism has earned it three literary awards and global acclaim.
‘I heard our grandmother asking what we were doing. “Say something!”, she demanded, threatening to rip our tongues out. Little did she know that one of us was holding her tongue in hand.’
In the heart of Bahia’s neglected hinterland, two sisters find an ancient knife under their grandmother’s bed and, momentarily dazed by its power, decide to test its mettle. The chilling violence that follows marks their lives and binds them together forever.
Acclaimed as a new masterpiece, this fascinating and captivating story about the lives of subsistence farmers in Brazil’s poorest region, three generations after the abolition of slavery, is both fantastical and realistic, encompassing themes of family, spirituality, slavery and its consequences, and political struggle.
The author is the acclaimed Brazilian writer Itamar Vieira Junior, 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 began studying geography in his undergraduate course at the Federal University of Bahia, being the first beneficiary of the Milton Santos Scholarship, dedicated to low-income Black youth. He graduated in Geography and completed his master’s degree. He holds a PhD in Ethnic and African Studies from the Federal University of Bahia, with research on the formation of quilombola communities in the interior of northeastern Brazil. Itamar is also a public servant at INCRA, the state agency responsible for implementing agrarian reform in Brazil.
He will travel across 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