Beatriz Bracher

A professor prepares to retire--Gustavo is set to move from Sao Paulo to the countryside, but it isn't the urban violence he's fleeing: what he fears most is the violence of his memory. But as he sorts out his papers, the ghosts arrive in full force. He was arrested in 1970 with his brother-in-law Armando: both were vicariously tortured. He was eventually released; Armando was killed. No one is certain that he didn't turn traitor: I didn't talk, he tells himself, yet guilt is his lifelong harvest. I Didn't Talk pits everyone against the protagonist--especially his own brother. The torture never ends, despite his bones having healed and his teeth having been replaced. And to make matters worse, certain details from his shattered memory don't quite add up... Beatriz Bracher depicts a life where the temperature is lower, there is no music, and much is out of view. I Didn't Talk's pariah's-eye-view of the forgotten "small" victims powerfully bears witness to their "internal exile." I didn't talk, Gustavo tells himself; and as Bracher honors his endless pain, what burns this tour de force so indelibly in the reader's mind is her intensely controlled voice.

I Didn't Talk

Antonio

In Beatriz Bracher's Antonio--her third novel and her breakout book in Brazil--Benjamin, on the verge of becoming a father, discovers a tragic family secret involving patrimony and determines to find out how it happened. Those most immediately involved are all dead, but their three closest confidantes are still alive--his grandmother, Isabel; Haroldo, his grandfather's friend; and Raul, his father's friend--and each will tell him different versions of the facts. It is by collecting these shards of memories that Benjamin will piece together the painful puzzle of his family history. As with a Faulkner novel, putting together these three perspectives leads to contradictions as often as to the truth.

A brilliant, magisterial novel of family secrets simmering beneath the surface Benjamin, on the verge of becoming a father, discovers a tragic family secret involving patrimony and determines to get to the root of. Those most immediately involved are all dead, but their three closest confidantes are still alive—Isabel, his grandmother; Haroldo, his grandfather’s friend; and Raul, his father’s friend—and each will tell him a different version of the facts. By collecting these shards of memories, which offer personal glimpses into issues of class and politics in Brazil, Benjamin will piece together the painful puzzle of his family history. Like a Faulkner novel, Beatriz Bracher’s brilliant Antonioshows the expansiveness of past events and the complexity of untangling long-buried secrets.

A devastating, darkly gripping portrait of the decline of a family and a country from one of Brazil's most celebrated contemporary writers ‘Bracher brilliantly picks away at the web of secrets and lies plaguing a family and country’ New York Times Benjamim, a young man on the cusp of fatherhood, discovers a disturbing family secret: before his father was born, his paternal grandfather had a child with Benjamim's mother. With both men dead, Benjamim turns to three of their confidantes to piece together his family history: Haroldo, his grandfather's best friend; Isabel, his grandmother; and Raul, a friend from his father's youth. Through their conflicting testimonies, full of blind spots and contradictions, Benjamim will gradually learn of the secrets and conflicts that shattered his wealthy family; of his father's search for meaning in the poverty of the backlands, and of his slide into madness. In prose of great subtlety and penetrating insight, Beatriz Bracher builds an indelible portrait of a family and a society in decay.

Beatriz Bracher

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