Portuguese Reading Group, 2020

After a childhood in Philadelphia, this novel’s narrator returns to a small town in the Brazilian midwest with his mother and sister. Amidst earthy plains, dusty air and the constant smell of wildfires, he grows close to his mother’s family, especially his grandfather, José, who made his fortune in the notary business. Meanwhile, the shadows of his past lives in America and Chile, and his absent father, a man of dubious morals, seem to hang over everything. As we follow the family’s stories, we’re caught in a net that comes and goes in time, never losing its intensity. In this first novel, Alejandro Chacoff writes in a precise flow, with genuine affection for his characters, composing an unforgettable novel of displacement and alienation.

Brasil (or Hy-Brasil) is a mythical island off the coast of Ireland, where the sea is the colour of lead. Those who attempt to explore the enchanted isle end up cursed, the mark of Brasil passed down in their families from generation to generation. Brazil is also the destination of young Margaret Cunningham and her family, who are fleeing the Irish potato famine of 1827 and arrive in a Rio de Janeiro in the midst of the Cisplatine War, during the first years of the Brazilian Empire. Far from a land of wonders, Margaret will discover that her new home is every bit as harsh and unforgiving as the one she left behind.

Ground Vertigo is centred around the lives of Stefan, a Dutchman who moves to Brazil, and Leonel, a Brazilian dancer who emigrates to Utrecht. The narrative blends seamlessly between the two characters, blurring the lines between contemporary Brazil and Europe, while meditating on themes such as migration, sexuality, art, language, urban violence and radicalisation. With a unique, free-flowing style that sometimes verges on the Joycean, this is a novel that is neither Brazilian nor European, but somewhere in the middle.

Centered on women from the Cariri region of Ceará, in the northeast of Brazil, Jarid Arraes’s stories defy classification—mixing realism, fantasy, and social criticism—and showcase a unique talent for naming and narrating women’s public and private everyday lives. A Catholic woman finds a bagful of suspicious-looking pills and decides to give them a try, only to find herself in the hallucinatory presence of Padre Cícero; a washerwoman tries to make sense of what her daughter wants, leading to a series of disturbing events; a mototaxi driver begins a new job only to be faced with gender barriers. In this dazzling debut collection, Arraes narrates the lives of women with power and precision, introducing a great new voice to contemporary Brazilian literature.