Flavia’s most famous character is Pilar, a curious girl that loves to travel and discover myths and stories from several different cultures. Pilar has been in adventures in places like Egypt, Greece, Amazonas (Brazil), and Machu Pichu (Peru). Her books have been sold to Germany (S. Fisher), France (Bayard), Latin America (Vergara y Riba), China (Shangai BBT Communication).

Books from the series:

PILAR’S DIARY OF GREECE (2010)Pilar loves travelling. Her series of books is well known in Brazil. Now she keeps a diary, describing every moment of her first adventure. She grew up without her dad, in her grandpa’s house. When Pilar’s grandpa goes to Greece and she hears that he is never coming back, she cannot accept it and wishes she could go after him. With a magic hammock, she and her best friend Breno travel to Greece and meet several gods along the way. But life among them isn’t easy and no one will ever be the same after this adventure.

PILAR’S DIARY IN THE AMAZON (2011)On the second book, Pilar travels to the Amazon, searching for her father, that she never met. He is an anthropologist and might be lost in the Jungle. She gets in touch with many Amazonian myths during her search.

PILAR’S DIARY IN EGYPT (2012)On the third book, Pilar goes to Egypt with her friends and decides to help young Tutancamon to have his throne back. They fight together and Tut teaches Pilar how to write and read hieroglyphs. Here too, she learns about old Egyptian mythology.

PILAR’S DIARY OF MACCHU PICCHU (April, 2014)

MY AFRICAN PRINCESS MARCIO VASSALO (Abacatte, 2011)

THE MACHINE ADRIANA FALCÃO (Salamandra, new edition August 2013)

ALMOST COMPLETELY HAPPILY EVER AFTER ANTONIO PRATA (Editora 34, February 2012)

THE HEAD OF THE SAINT SOCORRO ACIOLI (Cia das Letras, February 2014)

SHORT STORY OF A TINY LOVE MARINA COLASANTI (FTD, August 2013, 48 pp)

THE PILAR SERIES FLAVIA LINS E SILVA (Zahar)

SEVEN BONES AND A CURSE ROSA AMANDA STRAUSZ (Global, new edition August 2013)

MINHA PRINCESSA AFRICANA“Minha princesa africana” tells a love story made of endless letters and phone calls from across the ocean. “Her name was Marinela. No one believed that my girlfriend was a princess. Some people didn’t even know there were princesses in Africa. But mine was from there, from Angola. Marinela was very white and had more freckles than the sky of Luanda. Actually, we had seen each other only once in our lives, and every day we awaited for the day when we would see each other again. While the day didn’t arrive, Marinela called me every night and we would talk until she had fallen asleep. With her Portuguese accent, the princess would tell me that she could only sleep after hearing my voice. Or was it me that could only sleep after talking in her ear? Oh, my letters to Marinela were even longer than the hours we would spend listening to one another, and the hours we spent listening to one another were longer than the Nile”. With papier maché illustrations by artist Carol W., who has created exclusive pieces for the story, “Minha princesa africana” makes us want to love without haste, but with the deepest urgency to be happy.

A MÁQUINANordestina is a place where no one wants to stay anymore. The only thing that can be counted in this land without future is the void left by those who want to go to the other side of the line, where the world must be happening. And is exactly in this little town - forgotten even by the Lord - that the love between Antônio and Karina happens.With a precise and poetic prose, the author constructs a story capable of stopping time and changing the course of this tale and others that Antônio began to tell after he looked at his Karina, who, by then, had a look of good-bye, and promised: “Is it the world that you want? I’ll bring it to you, then”.

“The Machine” is a fable about love and time. A love story as big as the world.

FELIZES QUASE SEMPRE Everybody knows that a good fairy tale ends with the princess and her prince charming living happily ever after. But what few people know is what happens or does not happen when the story ends. Antonio Prata and the renowned Brazilian cartoonist Laerte show here, in delicious detail, how this so called perfect life is, and how “happily ever after” can become a big problem. And they prove, with lots of fun, that even in the enchanted world a little unhappiness now and then doesn’t hurt anyone. (English & Spanish translations avalable)

A CABEÇA DO SANTO Samuel goes to the little town of Candeia in search of his father, that left him when he was a child. It was the last request of his mother, who’s just passed away. When he arrives, he spends the rainy night in a small cave, but wakes up startled at 5 AM with a bedlam of female voices, talking and praying at the same time. Samuel runs out of the cave and realizes there is no one outside. The cave is actually the hollow head, gigantic and abandoned, of an unfinished statue of St. Anthony, and its body is on the top of the hill. Samuel has the gift of hearing the prayers that women make to the saint, talking about love, and that reverberate inside the saint’s head. Francisco, 15 years old, befriends Samuel and decides to financially explore his gift, promoting weddings and shams. Little by little, the town gets packed with religious people, attracted by Samuel’s “power”.The mayor of Candeia decides to banish him and explode the St. Anthony’s head. At the same time, Samuel finds out the truth about his father’s disappearance and falls in love with a mysterious voice that he hears every day among the voices that echo in the head.

BREVE HISTÓRIA DE UM PEQUENO AMOR The water that seeps into the office through a broken roof tile initiates an encounter of love. The author, owner of that office, finds herself confronted by the need of saving a life, the one of the baby pigeon abandoned in the nest beneath the tiles. She will have to improvise as a mother, since she knows nothing about the needs of those birds. And the pigeon will have to improvise as a son, since he knows nothing about the one who protects and cares for him. Like in all loving relationships, both of them progress slowly, paying attention to one another while they seek to understand. They don’t speak the same language, and they are not of the same species, but it doesn’t matter much, because affection knows other ways to get to comprehension. And it is about affection when she tries to teach him to fly, or when he, free, answers her call. Gently, the differences between them are overcome at each new stage of development, at each new victory. Until the completion of this cycle of goodwill that, being brief, becomes unforgettable.

SETE OSSOS E UMA MALDIÇÃOIn this book of horror stories, Rosa Amanda Strausz constructs apparently common stories that, through an expertly crafted suspense, become horrifying narratives. But, in this case, the fear doesn’t paralyze, on the contrary, it only increases the desire to get to the next page, something that requires strength. In “Seven bones and a curse” there’s no blood dripping or splattered brains, as is informed in the dust jacket. Nothing explicit or distasteful. In it, the reader’s imagination is in charge of creating the macabre scenes forged through an elegant text. And it is exactly this suggestion of terror, fantastic literature of the best kind, that makes it so compelling.

CHILDREN/YA FICTION

www.agenciariff.com.br

FICTION

Adélia PRADOAdriana LISBOA*Adriana LUNARDI **Alberto MARTINS Alexandre VIDAL PORTOAntonio PRATAAriano SUASSUNAArthur DAPIEVEBeatriz BRACHERCarlos Herculano LOPESCintia MOSCOVICHClaudia TAJESDodô AZEVEDOEmilio FRAIAFlávio CARNEIROJoão Luiz Anzanello CARRASCOZAJosé Luiz PASSOS*José Rubem FONSECA***Kledir RAMILLeticia WIERZCHOWSKILivia GARCIA-ROZALuis Fernando VERÍSSIMOLya LUFTLygia Fagundes TELLESMarcelo FERRONIMarcelo PIRESMaria Adelaide AMARALMaria Valéria REZENDERicardo LÍSIASSérgio RODRIGUESTony BELLOTTOVanessa BARBARAVitor RAMIL

NONFICTION

Carlos DOMINGOSEliane BRUM**Elio GASPARILuiz Alberto HANNSLuiz Eduardo SOARESMárcia ZOLADZRoberto DaMATTAVicente de BRITTO PEREIRAZuenir VENTURA

CLASSIC AUTHORS

Caio Fernando ABREUCarlos DRUMMOND DE ANDRADEÉrico VERÍSSIMOJoão CABRAL DE MELO NETO Jorge de LIMAJosé Cândido de CARVALHOMª Julieta DRUMMOND DE ANDRADEMILLÔR FernandesMario QUINTANAMoacyr SCLIAR*Otto Lara RESENDEPaulo Emílio SALES GOMESPaulo Mendes CAMPOSPaulo RÓNAIRachel de QUEIROZRicardo RAMOSSérgio PORTO

Brazil only(*) contact Nicole Witt(**) contact Anja Saile(***) Carmen Balcells

HIGHLIGHTS 2013/2014

© Gabriel Andrade

Lucia Riff . lucia@agenciariff.com.br

SUCH A BRILLIANT THING, THE RAIN CINTIA MOSCOVICH (Record, 2012 – 144 pp)

LETTUCE NIGHTS VANESSA BARBARA (Alfaguara, October 2013)

THE MARRIAGE EQUATION LUIZ ALBERTO HANNS (Nonfiction - Cia. das Letras, August 2013 – 264 pp)

40 DAYS MARIA VALÉRIA REZENDE (Alfaguara, March 2014)

AT 7 AND AT 40 JOÃO ANZANELLO CARRASCOZA (Cosac Naify, August 2013 – 224 pp)

BEETHOVEN’S LAST QUARTETS AND OTHER STORIES LUIS FERNANDO VERISSIMO (Objetiva, October 2013)

THE STOLEN BOOK FLÁVIO CARNEIRO (Rocco, September 2013 - 224 pp)

TIME IS A FLOWING RIVER LyA LUFT (Record, March 2014)

SALT LETÍCIA WIERZCHOWSKI (Intrínseca, August 2013 – 240 pp)

NAKED IN BOOTS ANTONIO PRATA (Cia das Letras, October 2013)

GOLD MINING BEATRIZ BRACHER (Editora 34, September 2013 -136 pp)

FROM THE WALLS, MY LOVE, THE SLAVES ARE WATCHING MARCELO FERRONI (Cia. das Letras, April 2014)

DIVORCE RICARDO LÍSIAS (Alfaguara, August 2013 – 240 pp)

SERGIO Y. ALEXANDRE VIDAL PORTO (Cia das Letras, March 2014)

THE FEINT SÉRGIO RODRIGUES (Cia das Letras, September 2013 – 224 pp)

OLD BOYS LiviA GARCiA-RozA (Cia. das Letras, May 2014)

ESSA COISA BRILHANTE QUE É A CHUVA An anthological portrait by Cintia Moscovich. With great originality and sensitivity, in each story she is able to describe topics both unexceptional and inevitable of life — the jealousy a son feels towards his mother, the arrival of a dog at home, gray hair appearing before time, accepting the sudden death of a father —, creating an unexpected emotional tension between them and grabbing the reader’s attention from beginning to end. “Such a brilliant thing, the rain” offers a collection of stories that shows the most different prisms of family relations, giving the reader a unique and rare experience. In the words of the writer Martha Medeiros, “if you think the title is too long and difficult to remember, memorize only one word: brilliant.”

NOITES DE ALFACEAfter fifty years of marriage, a grouchy old man suddenly loses his wife. Heartbroken, Otto refuses to interact with the residents of the tiny little town where he lives, but finds himself being harassed by the noises and intrusions of his neighbors: a pharmacist addicted to side effects, an esoteric old lady, a hyperactive typist, an army veteran, a persistent mailman, and a young anthropologist specialized in Eskimos. Little by little, inspired by the police shows he loves, he gathers evidence of a mystery, an obscure incident that the community tries to hide. His insomnia gets worse; the nights get longer. Maybe his wife was involved. Or maybe Otto is just hearing things. Among noises from the blender, barks, quarrels, and spankings, the suspense begins to corner the old man, who needs to decide if he wants to know the truth or not. (Sample translation available)

Rights sold to: Éditions zulma, France.

A EQUAÇÃO DO CASAMENTO We haven’t yet realized how complex the current project for happiness in a marriage is. We were not prepared for it. The increasing number of divorces, the increment of complaints, the matrimonial dissatisfaction and the difficulties that single people have to find a partner testify to the daunting task of adjusting expectations. The current model of egalitarian marriage, aimed at personal happiness and everlasting love, demands an adjustment of expectations that wasn’t required in the 19th century or the beginning of the 20th century. It is time to change perspectives and rules of coexisting. We have to obtain matrimonial skills that, until recently, we didn’t even know were necessary. This is what “The Marriage Equation” deals with: the adjustments in the desires that each one has to do on their own — and also with their partners. The equation presents six dimensions that researches show to be crucial so that husband and wife stay married and content doing so. It allows the discussion of contemporary marriage and helps you ponder about your own marriage and what can (or can’t) be changed in it.

40 DIASSummoned to move to the extreme south of the country by her only daughter, who wants to have her own children and expects her mother to take care of them, Alice begrudgingly agrees. However, as soon as she gets there, her daughter and son-in-law leave for a long period of studies abroad, putting off sine die the project of grandchildren. In Alice, betrayed, anger and bitterness arise. Under the pretext of helping a woman from Paraíba find her son, a construction worker in Porto Alegre, from whom the desperate mother hasn’t heard from, Alice goes looking for vague clues: a name, Cícero Araújo, the name of a slum where she doesn’t find him. Following successive leads, suggested by those who have heard the story of the lost son, she spends forty days and nights wandering the streets of Porto Alegre, not sending news about her wellbeing to anyone, in a search that, little by little, loses its objective purpose, exploring the city and herself inside and out, discovering the world — Wonderland — that exists in the holes that the city’s surface hides. Exhausted, she returns home and records what happens to her, dialoging with the Barbie doll printed on the cover of the notebook in which she writes.

AOS 7 E AOS 40“At 7 and at 40”, by João Anzanello Carrascoza, a novel in fragments, brings episodes led by the same character in two seminal periods of human existence — seven years old (childhood), and forty years old (maturity). The two narratives alternate: first, they show the boy in Brazil’s countryside during the 1970’s, when the country was dominated by the rural culture and was under a military regime, and afterwards when he is already an adult in contemporary Brazil, as a citizen of the great national metropolis impacted by the spectacle of daily life. In the first run, the character lived the time of the dream. In the second one, the time of reason. The book reveals the creation and the current phase of a post-modern individual, torn apart, searching for his completeness, presenting a hybrid format in which the stories can be read in pairs or without an established order. But whichever way the book is read, the result is a fictional mosaic of high lyric charge. (Sample translation available)

OS ÚLTIMOS QUARTETOS DE BEETHOVEN A mysterious and sexy Spanish woman, a former political prisoner tormented by a stain on the carpet, an expert in wine that doesn’t drink, a man who needs to decide how far to go to earn a promotion, a cellist who has a strange hold on five friends. Not to mention the housekeeper that solves all — I said all — problems in the house. Who else but Cremilda would be able to get rid of the loan shark that badgers the family and, on top of that, make a blancmange exactly like the one her boss’s mother makes?This irresistible array of characters is in the ten texts compiled in this book. Luis Fernando Verissimo goes from drama to comedy, with incursions on tragicomedy here and there. Like in the case of the man who, during a heart attack, tries to remember where he has put his medication and what comes to mind are the streets of Copacabana, Laurel and Hardy, the captaincies, the central line of the three times soccer champion Flamengo in the 1940s, and Gisela. Oh, Gisela!

O LIVRO ROUBADOAndré, 32 years old, is unemployed, and the only thing he can do is read detective novels. By accident, he’s mistaken for a real private investigator, and decides to carry on with the charade when he learns that he can get some money from it. With his inseparable friend and assistant Gordo by his side, André begins to investigate the theft of a rare book: a first edition of Histoires Extraordinaires, Baudelaire’s translation of Poe’s short stories, stolen from a bibliophile’s house. “The Stolen Book” brings back the same duo from “The Championship” , Flávio Carneiro’s first detective novel, with great acceptance from readers and critics in Brazil. As in the previous novel, Rio de Janeiro is, more than the background, almost a character in the story. Walking the streets and bars of the town, these two amateur detectives draw a passionate portrait of Rio, either showing an unusual perspective on its landmarks or revealing almost unknown spots. Through André’s fluid and humorous language, the reader will closely follow a rapid paced adventure, a surprising story in which reality and fiction blend together and nothing is really what it seems to be. (Sample translation available)

O TEMPO É UM RIO QUE CORRE The flow of time, as a river that carries us — not destroying, but transforming — makes life so important and nothing trivial, although we may forget it.In the three big stages of life — childhood/youth, maturity, and old age — we are creating our lives each day, creating who we are, creating maybe our end, when, in this big, tireless river, the vessel that takes us will eventually moor at a dock, or debouch in an ocean called enigma. That is not necessarily the end — regardless of beliefs or philosophies.Each one creates his own story, even without knowing it, running through the woods of fatalities and mishaps, but able to, here and there, discover, accomplish, build.The passage of time, instead of terrorizing and pushing us to take foolish measures to look embalmed in an idealized youth, must be the master that will teach us the supreme importance of the smallest things.And the meaning of time? Each one of us gives sense to their own story.

SALComing from Andaluzia, the Godoys have been living, for many generations, in La Duiva, a little island in South America, where they work as lighthouse keepers and run a sea rescue company. One of the Godoys, Ivan, marries Cecília. They have six children, Lucas, Julieta, Orfeu, Eva, Flora e Tiberius. The young Flora, who has always been a bookworm, writes her first novel. However, some events from this still unpublished book begin to happen in real life, and bring to the island the English teacher Julius Templeman. Julius’unexpected arrival transforms the Godoy’s lives in La Duiva: both Flora and her brother Orfeu fall in love with the newcomer, and this astonishing love triangle is going to reshape deeply the whole family’s destiny. (Sample translation available)

NU DE BOTAS In “Naked in boots”, Antonio Prata revisits the most memorable events of his childhood. The memoirs are illuminations about the first years of the author’s life, told with the precision and humor to which his thousands of readers have become accustomed in Folha de São Paulo, newspaper in which Prata has a weekly column since 2010. The first memories of his backyard, the neighborhood friends, the vacations at the beach, the divorce of his parents, the Halley comet, Bozo and SBT cartoons, the first love, the sex discovered in porn magazines — all the sentimental education of a middle-class boy from São Paulo, born in the 1970s, is shown in “Naked in boots”. What is striking, however, is the peculiarity of his perspective. The texts are not the memories of the adult looking back and reviewing his journey with nostalgia or detachment. On the contrary, the author returns to the point of view of the child, who is amazed by the world and gives a very particular sense to it — a funny, mysterious, lyric, and enchanted one.

GARIMPO Compilation of the most recent short stories by Beatriz Bracher, written between 2009 and 2012, “Gold Mining” presents nine texts that take the characteristic formal experimentations and lyricism of the award-winning author of “Antonio” and “My Love” further. From a conversation on a chat site, in “Michel and Flora”, to the longest story, that gives title to the book, written as entries in a journal, and a screenplay draft in “For a love movie”, the narratives are part of a literary project that seeks, as define by Ricardo Lísias, “to illuminate the breaches in language through historic uneasiness and an intimate dive into the characters”. (Sample translation available)

DAS PAREDES, MEU AMOR, OS ESCRAVOS NOS CONTEMPLAM Humberto Mariconda had everything he needed to feel like an accomplished person: he was about to release his first book, The Punch in the Laughing Mouth and Other Stories, and had met a rich and enigmatic girl, with whom he thought he could be rich and happy. His book, however, is not as successful as he’d expected. And the girl, Julia, is an elusive character who, by inviting him to spend the weekend in her family’s historic country house, will submit him to dramatic experiences: a crime, an interview with dead people, a duel. Locked in this mansion haunted by bad memories, isolated from the world by a storm, and oblivious to the passage of time, Mariconda will become the investigator of a brutal crime that seems straight out of a novel.

DIVÓRCIOAugust, 2011. After just four months of marriage, the narrator of “Divorce” runs into his wife’s journal, in which she writes: Ricardo is pathetic, any child would be ashamed of having such a father. I’ve married a man that hasn’t lived. “After four days without any sleep, I thought I had died”, the narrator vents. From then on, he describes his falling apart and his attempt to understand what has led him to the critical point. Literature, and afterwards, sports practice, helps him regain some clarity in his life. But it’s not always possible to explain unemotionally what happened; to sort out conflicting feelings, pain and obsession, the desire to forget. This is what makes “Divorce” a novel without parallel. In an exciting flow, in a fictional reconstruction of memory, the author goes beyond the limits of self-fiction and reaches a new ground, in which literature — combative, defiant literature — has the final word. (Sample translation available)

SERGIO Y. Sergio Y., a 17-year-old son of the privileged elite in São Paulo, decides to seek therapy as an attempt to become a happier person. Over the course of a year, he diligently sees Dr. Armando, his 70-year-old therapist. However, after a vacation trip to New York, Sergio announces that he is quitting therapy on grounds that he has found “his way to happiness”. Years later, after an accidental meeting with Sergio’s mother, Dr. Armando is surprised to learn about the unexpected course the life of his patient has taken. The story of Sergio Y., as told by his therapist, is shocking. Yet it is optimistic and upbeat. A page-turner and a gem of a novel, Sergio Y. goes to America has been awarded the Paraná Literary Prize for best unpublished novel. Its commercial edition will appear in March 2014 by Companhia das Letras.

O DRIBLEThis third novel by Sérgio Rodrigues is centered on the character of an eighty-year-old sports columnist who tries to build bridges with his son, whom he fell out with a quarter of a century earlier. On weekly fishing trips, Murilo Junior fills the gap that separates him from Neto, a mediocre copy editor of self-help books who has felt unwanted by his father since he was five years old, when his mother committed suicide. It is from the son’s point of view that the third-person narrator tells the story of their reunion. As in Rodrigues’s other novels, there is a counterpoint of narrative voices. Interspersed with the main story, we read the book that Murilo is writing about an extraordinary player from the 1960s called Peralvo, who, according to him, was blessed with supernatural powers and should have been “greater than Pelé”. The alternation between the disenchanted realism of Neto’s story and the exuberant magical realism of Peralvo’s is executed with great technical expertise. (Sample translation available)

VELHOS MENINOS Vivian is a recent widow. After decades married to Conrado, she finds herself with the difficult mission of taking her husband’s ashes to his home town, Salvador. Hilda, a close friend of hers, will accompany her on this task. But when she arrives at Bahia’s capital, everything begins to change. The decision of where to scatter the ashes proves to be more complex than she had imagined, Hilda behaves in a very bizarre way and, as if by irony of fate, Vivian will meet Laurinho, her love from childhood, again. The possibility of falling in love and having a romance when she’s almost 70 years old will bring a new light to the protagonist’s life who, up until now, had resigned to an unhappy marriage, the dedication to her only son, and her refuge in writing. Livia Garcia-Roza presents another sensitive novel, humorous and full of hope.

HIGHLIGHTS 2013/2014 HIGHLIGHTS 2013/2014

SUCH A BRILLIANT THING, THE RAIN CINTIA MOSCOVICH (Record, 2012 – 144 pp)

LETTUCE NIGHTS VANESSA BARBARA (Alfaguara, October 2013)

THE MARRIAGE EQUATION LUIZ ALBERTO HANNS (Nonfiction - Cia. das Letras, August 2013 – 264 pp)

40 DAYS MARIA VALÉRIA REZENDE (Alfaguara, March 2014)

AT 7 AND AT 40 JOÃO ANZANELLO CARRASCOZA (Cosac Naify, August 2013 – 224 pp)

BEETHOVEN’S LAST QUARTETS AND OTHER STORIES LUIS FERNANDO VERISSIMO (Objetiva, October 2013)

THE STOLEN BOOK FLÁVIO CARNEIRO (Rocco, September 2013 - 224 pp)

TIME IS A FLOWING RIVER LyA LUFT (Record, March 2014)

SALT LETÍCIA WIERZCHOWSKI (Intrínseca, August 2013 – 240 pp)

NAKED IN BOOTS ANTONIO PRATA (Cia das Letras, October 2013)

GOLD MINING BEATRIZ BRACHER (Editora 34, September 2013 -136 pp)

FROM THE WALLS, MY LOVE, THE SLAVES ARE WATCHING MARCELO FERRONI (Cia. das Letras, April 2014)

DIVORCE RICARDO LÍSIAS (Alfaguara, August 2013 – 240 pp)

SERGIO Y. ALEXANDRE VIDAL PORTO (Cia das Letras, March 2014)

THE FEINT SÉRGIO RODRIGUES (Cia das Letras, September 2013 – 224 pp)

OLD BOYS LiviA GARCiA-RozA (Cia. das Letras, May 2014)

ESSA COISA BRILHANTE QUE É A CHUVA An anthological portrait by Cintia Moscovich. With great originality and sensitivity, in each story she is able to describe topics both unexceptional and inevitable of life — the jealousy a son feels towards his mother, the arrival of a dog at home, gray hair appearing before time, accepting the sudden death of a father —, creating an unexpected emotional tension between them and grabbing the reader’s attention from beginning to end. “Such a brilliant thing, the rain” offers a collection of stories that shows the most different prisms of family relations, giving the reader a unique and rare experience. In the words of the writer Martha Medeiros, “if you think the title is too long and difficult to remember, memorize only one word: brilliant.”

NOITES DE ALFACEAfter fifty years of marriage, a grouchy old man suddenly loses his wife. Heartbroken, Otto refuses to interact with the residents of the tiny little town where he lives, but finds himself being harassed by the noises and intrusions of his neighbors: a pharmacist addicted to side effects, an esoteric old lady, a hyperactive typist, an army veteran, a persistent mailman, and a young anthropologist specialized in Eskimos. Little by little, inspired by the police shows he loves, he gathers evidence of a mystery, an obscure incident that the community tries to hide. His insomnia gets worse; the nights get longer. Maybe his wife was involved. Or maybe Otto is just hearing things. Among noises from the blender, barks, quarrels, and spankings, the suspense begins to corner the old man, who needs to decide if he wants to know the truth or not. (Sample translation available)

Rights sold to: Éditions zulma, France.

A EQUAÇÃO DO CASAMENTO We haven’t yet realized how complex the current project for happiness in a marriage is. We were not prepared for it. The increasing number of divorces, the increment of complaints, the matrimonial dissatisfaction and the difficulties that single people have to find a partner testify to the daunting task of adjusting expectations. The current model of egalitarian marriage, aimed at personal happiness and everlasting love, demands an adjustment of expectations that wasn’t required in the 19th century or the beginning of the 20th century. It is time to change perspectives and rules of coexisting. We have to obtain matrimonial skills that, until recently, we didn’t even know were necessary. This is what “The Marriage Equation” deals with: the adjustments in the desires that each one has to do on their own — and also with their partners. The equation presents six dimensions that researches show to be crucial so that husband and wife stay married and content doing so. It allows the discussion of contemporary marriage and helps you ponder about your own marriage and what can (or can’t) be changed in it.

40 DIASSummoned to move to the extreme south of the country by her only daughter, who wants to have her own children and expects her mother to take care of them, Alice begrudgingly agrees. However, as soon as she gets there, her daughter and son-in-law leave for a long period of studies abroad, putting off sine die the project of grandchildren. In Alice, betrayed, anger and bitterness arise. Under the pretext of helping a woman from Paraíba find her son, a construction worker in Porto Alegre, from whom the desperate mother hasn’t heard from, Alice goes looking for vague clues: a name, Cícero Araújo, the name of a slum where she doesn’t find him. Following successive leads, suggested by those who have heard the story of the lost son, she spends forty days and nights wandering the streets of Porto Alegre, not sending news about her wellbeing to anyone, in a search that, little by little, loses its objective purpose, exploring the city and herself inside and out, discovering the world — Wonderland — that exists in the holes that the city’s surface hides. Exhausted, she returns home and records what happens to her, dialoging with the Barbie doll printed on the cover of the notebook in which she writes.

AOS 7 E AOS 40“At 7 and at 40”, by João Anzanello Carrascoza, a novel in fragments, brings episodes led by the same character in two seminal periods of human existence — seven years old (childhood), and forty years old (maturity). The two narratives alternate: first, they show the boy in Brazil’s countryside during the 1970’s, when the country was dominated by the rural culture and was under a military regime, and afterwards when he is already an adult in contemporary Brazil, as a citizen of the great national metropolis impacted by the spectacle of daily life. In the first run, the character lived the time of the dream. In the second one, the time of reason. The book reveals the creation and the current phase of a post-modern individual, torn apart, searching for his completeness, presenting a hybrid format in which the stories can be read in pairs or without an established order. But whichever way the book is read, the result is a fictional mosaic of high lyric charge. (Sample translation available)

OS ÚLTIMOS QUARTETOS DE BEETHOVEN A mysterious and sexy Spanish woman, a former political prisoner tormented by a stain on the carpet, an expert in wine that doesn’t drink, a man who needs to decide how far to go to earn a promotion, a cellist who has a strange hold on five friends. Not to mention the housekeeper that solves all — I said all — problems in the house. Who else but Cremilda would be able to get rid of the loan shark that badgers the family and, on top of that, make a blancmange exactly like the one her boss’s mother makes?This irresistible array of characters is in the ten texts compiled in this book. Luis Fernando Verissimo goes from drama to comedy, with incursions on tragicomedy here and there. Like in the case of the man who, during a heart attack, tries to remember where he has put his medication and what comes to mind are the streets of Copacabana, Laurel and Hardy, the captaincies, the central line of the three times soccer champion Flamengo in the 1940s, and Gisela. Oh, Gisela!

O LIVRO ROUBADOAndré, 32 years old, is unemployed, and the only thing he can do is read detective novels. By accident, he’s mistaken for a real private investigator, and decides to carry on with the charade when he learns that he can get some money from it. With his inseparable friend and assistant Gordo by his side, André begins to investigate the theft of a rare book: a first edition of Histoires Extraordinaires, Baudelaire’s translation of Poe’s short stories, stolen from a bibliophile’s house. “The Stolen Book” brings back the same duo from “The Championship” , Flávio Carneiro’s first detective novel, with great acceptance from readers and critics in Brazil. As in the previous novel, Rio de Janeiro is, more than the background, almost a character in the story. Walking the streets and bars of the town, these two amateur detectives draw a passionate portrait of Rio, either showing an unusual perspective on its landmarks or revealing almost unknown spots. Through André’s fluid and humorous language, the reader will closely follow a rapid paced adventure, a surprising story in which reality and fiction blend together and nothing is really what it seems to be. (Sample translation available)

O TEMPO É UM RIO QUE CORRE The flow of time, as a river that carries us — not destroying, but transforming — makes life so important and nothing trivial, although we may forget it.In the three big stages of life — childhood/youth, maturity, and old age — we are creating our lives each day, creating who we are, creating maybe our end, when, in this big, tireless river, the vessel that takes us will eventually moor at a dock, or debouch in an ocean called enigma. That is not necessarily the end — regardless of beliefs or philosophies.Each one creates his own story, even without knowing it, running through the woods of fatalities and mishaps, but able to, here and there, discover, accomplish, build.The passage of time, instead of terrorizing and pushing us to take foolish measures to look embalmed in an idealized youth, must be the master that will teach us the supreme importance of the smallest things.And the meaning of time? Each one of us gives sense to their own story.

SALComing from Andaluzia, the Godoys have been living, for many generations, in La Duiva, a little island in South America, where they work as lighthouse keepers and run a sea rescue company. One of the Godoys, Ivan, marries Cecília. They have six children, Lucas, Julieta, Orfeu, Eva, Flora e Tiberius. The young Flora, who has always been a bookworm, writes her first novel. However, some events from this still unpublished book begin to happen in real life, and bring to the island the English teacher Julius Templeman. Julius’unexpected arrival transforms the Godoy’s lives in La Duiva: both Flora and her brother Orfeu fall in love with the newcomer, and this astonishing love triangle is going to reshape deeply the whole family’s destiny. (Sample translation available)

NU DE BOTAS In “Naked in boots”, Antonio Prata revisits the most memorable events of his childhood. The memoirs are illuminations about the first years of the author’s life, told with the precision and humor to which his thousands of readers have become accustomed in Folha de São Paulo, newspaper in which Prata has a weekly column since 2010. The first memories of his backyard, the neighborhood friends, the vacations at the beach, the divorce of his parents, the Halley comet, Bozo and SBT cartoons, the first love, the sex discovered in porn magazines — all the sentimental education of a middle-class boy from São Paulo, born in the 1970s, is shown in “Naked in boots”. What is striking, however, is the peculiarity of his perspective. The texts are not the memories of the adult looking back and reviewing his journey with nostalgia or detachment. On the contrary, the author returns to the point of view of the child, who is amazed by the world and gives a very particular sense to it — a funny, mysterious, lyric, and enchanted one.

GARIMPO Compilation of the most recent short stories by Beatriz Bracher, written between 2009 and 2012, “Gold Mining” presents nine texts that take the characteristic formal experimentations and lyricism of the award-winning author of “Antonio” and “My Love” further. From a conversation on a chat site, in “Michel and Flora”, to the longest story, that gives title to the book, written as entries in a journal, and a screenplay draft in “For a love movie”, the narratives are part of a literary project that seeks, as define by Ricardo Lísias, “to illuminate the breaches in language through historic uneasiness and an intimate dive into the characters”. (Sample translation available)

DAS PAREDES, MEU AMOR, OS ESCRAVOS NOS CONTEMPLAM Humberto Mariconda had everything he needed to feel like an accomplished person: he was about to release his first book, The Punch in the Laughing Mouth and Other Stories, and had met a rich and enigmatic girl, with whom he thought he could be rich and happy. His book, however, is not as successful as he’d expected. And the girl, Julia, is an elusive character who, by inviting him to spend the weekend in her family’s historic country house, will submit him to dramatic experiences: a crime, an interview with dead people, a duel. Locked in this mansion haunted by bad memories, isolated from the world by a storm, and oblivious to the passage of time, Mariconda will become the investigator of a brutal crime that seems straight out of a novel.

DIVÓRCIOAugust, 2011. After just four months of marriage, the narrator of “Divorce” runs into his wife’s journal, in which she writes: Ricardo is pathetic, any child would be ashamed of having such a father. I’ve married a man that hasn’t lived. “After four days without any sleep, I thought I had died”, the narrator vents. From then on, he describes his falling apart and his attempt to understand what has led him to the critical point. Literature, and afterwards, sports practice, helps him regain some clarity in his life. But it’s not always possible to explain unemotionally what happened; to sort out conflicting feelings, pain and obsession, the desire to forget. This is what makes “Divorce” a novel without parallel. In an exciting flow, in a fictional reconstruction of memory, the author goes beyond the limits of self-fiction and reaches a new ground, in which literature — combative, defiant literature — has the final word. (Sample translation available)

SERGIO Y. Sergio Y., a 17-year-old son of the privileged elite in São Paulo, decides to seek therapy as an attempt to become a happier person. Over the course of a year, he diligently sees Dr. Armando, his 70-year-old therapist. However, after a vacation trip to New York, Sergio announces that he is quitting therapy on grounds that he has found “his way to happiness”. Years later, after an accidental meeting with Sergio’s mother, Dr. Armando is surprised to learn about the unexpected course the life of his patient has taken. The story of Sergio Y., as told by his therapist, is shocking. Yet it is optimistic and upbeat. A page-turner and a gem of a novel, Sergio Y. goes to America has been awarded the Paraná Literary Prize for best unpublished novel. Its commercial edition will appear in March 2014 by Companhia das Letras.

O DRIBLEThis third novel by Sérgio Rodrigues is centered on the character of an eighty-year-old sports columnist who tries to build bridges with his son, whom he fell out with a quarter of a century earlier. On weekly fishing trips, Murilo Junior fills the gap that separates him from Neto, a mediocre copy editor of self-help books who has felt unwanted by his father since he was five years old, when his mother committed suicide. It is from the son’s point of view that the third-person narrator tells the story of their reunion. As in Rodrigues’s other novels, there is a counterpoint of narrative voices. Interspersed with the main story, we read the book that Murilo is writing about an extraordinary player from the 1960s called Peralvo, who, according to him, was blessed with supernatural powers and should have been “greater than Pelé”. The alternation between the disenchanted realism of Neto’s story and the exuberant magical realism of Peralvo’s is executed with great technical expertise. (Sample translation available)

VELHOS MENINOS Vivian is a recent widow. After decades married to Conrado, she finds herself with the difficult mission of taking her husband’s ashes to his home town, Salvador. Hilda, a close friend of hers, will accompany her on this task. But when she arrives at Bahia’s capital, everything begins to change. The decision of where to scatter the ashes proves to be more complex than she had imagined, Hilda behaves in a very bizarre way and, as if by irony of fate, Vivian will meet Laurinho, her love from childhood, again. The possibility of falling in love and having a romance when she’s almost 70 years old will bring a new light to the protagonist’s life who, up until now, had resigned to an unhappy marriage, the dedication to her only son, and her refuge in writing. Livia Garcia-Roza presents another sensitive novel, humorous and full of hope.

HIGHLIGHTS 2013/2014 HIGHLIGHTS 2013/2014

Flavia’s most famous character is Pilar, a curious girl that loves to travel and discover myths and stories from several different cultures. Pilar has been in adventures in places like Egypt, Greece, Amazonas (Brazil), and Machu Pichu (Peru). Her books have been sold to Germany (S. Fisher), France (Bayard), Latin America (Vergara y Riba), China (Shangai BBT Communication).

Books from the series:

PILAR’S DIARY OF GREECE (2010)Pilar loves travelling. Her series of books is well known in Brazil. Now she keeps a diary, describing every moment of her first adventure. She grew up without her dad, in her grandpa’s house. When Pilar’s grandpa goes to Greece and she hears that he is never coming back, she cannot accept it and wishes she could go after him. With a magic hammock, she and her best friend Breno travel to Greece and meet several gods along the way. But life among them isn’t easy and no one will ever be the same after this adventure.

PILAR’S DIARY IN THE AMAZON (2011)On the second book, Pilar travels to the Amazon, searching for her father, that she never met. He is an anthropologist and might be lost in the Jungle. She gets in touch with many Amazonian myths during her search.

PILAR’S DIARY IN EGYPT (2012)On the third book, Pilar goes to Egypt with her friends and decides to help young Tutancamon to have his throne back. They fight together and Tut teaches Pilar how to write and read hieroglyphs. Here too, she learns about old Egyptian mythology.

PILAR’S DIARY OF MACCHU PICCHU (April, 2014)

MY AFRICAN PRINCESS MARCIO VASSALO (Abacatte, 2011)

THE MACHINE ADRIANA FALCÃO (Salamandra, new edition August 2013)

ALMOST COMPLETELY HAPPILY EVER AFTER ANTONIO PRATA (Editora 34, February 2012)

THE HEAD OF THE SAINT SOCORRO ACIOLI (Cia das Letras, February 2014)

SHORT STORY OF A TINY LOVE MARINA COLASANTI (FTD, August 2013, 48 pp)

THE PILAR SERIES FLAVIA LINS E SILVA (Zahar)

SEVEN BONES AND A CURSE ROSA AMANDA STRAUSZ (Global, new edition August 2013)

MINHA PRINCESSA AFRICANA“Minha princesa africana” tells a love story made of endless letters and phone calls from across the ocean. “Her name was Marinela. No one believed that my girlfriend was a princess. Some people didn’t even know there were princesses in Africa. But mine was from there, from Angola. Marinela was very white and had more freckles than the sky of Luanda. Actually, we had seen each other only once in our lives, and every day we awaited for the day when we would see each other again. While the day didn’t arrive, Marinela called me every night and we would talk until she had fallen asleep. With her Portuguese accent, the princess would tell me that she could only sleep after hearing my voice. Or was it me that could only sleep after talking in her ear? Oh, my letters to Marinela were even longer than the hours we would spend listening to one another, and the hours we spent listening to one another were longer than the Nile”. With papier maché illustrations by artist Carol W., who has created exclusive pieces for the story, “Minha princesa africana” makes us want to love without haste, but with the deepest urgency to be happy.

A MÁQUINANordestina is a place where no one wants to stay anymore. The only thing that can be counted in this land without future is the void left by those who want to go to the other side of the line, where the world must be happening. And is exactly in this little town - forgotten even by the Lord - that the love between Antônio and Karina happens.With a precise and poetic prose, the author constructs a story capable of stopping time and changing the course of this tale and others that Antônio began to tell after he looked at his Karina, who, by then, had a look of good-bye, and promised: “Is it the world that you want? I’ll bring it to you, then”.

“The Machine” is a fable about love and time. A love story as big as the world.

FELIZES QUASE SEMPRE Everybody knows that a good fairy tale ends with the princess and her prince charming living happily ever after. But what few people know is what happens or does not happen when the story ends. Antonio Prata and the renowned Brazilian cartoonist Laerte show here, in delicious detail, how this so called perfect life is, and how “happily ever after” can become a big problem. And they prove, with lots of fun, that even in the enchanted world a little unhappiness now and then doesn’t hurt anyone. (English & Spanish translations avalable)

A CABEÇA DO SANTO Samuel goes to the little town of Candeia in search of his father, that left him when he was a child. It was the last request of his mother, who’s just passed away. When he arrives, he spends the rainy night in a small cave, but wakes up startled at 5 AM with a bedlam of female voices, talking and praying at the same time. Samuel runs out of the cave and realizes there is no one outside. The cave is actually the hollow head, gigantic and abandoned, of an unfinished statue of St. Anthony, and its body is on the top of the hill. Samuel has the gift of hearing the prayers that women make to the saint, talking about love, and that reverberate inside the saint’s head. Francisco, 15 years old, befriends Samuel and decides to financially explore his gift, promoting weddings and shams. Little by little, the town gets packed with religious people, attracted by Samuel’s “power”.The mayor of Candeia decides to banish him and explode the St. Anthony’s head. At the same time, Samuel finds out the truth about his father’s disappearance and falls in love with a mysterious voice that he hears every day among the voices that echo in the head.

BREVE HISTÓRIA DE UM PEQUENO AMOR The water that seeps into the office through a broken roof tile initiates an encounter of love. The author, owner of that office, finds herself confronted by the need of saving a life, the one of the baby pigeon abandoned in the nest beneath the tiles. She will have to improvise as a mother, since she knows nothing about the needs of those birds. And the pigeon will have to improvise as a son, since he knows nothing about the one who protects and cares for him. Like in all loving relationships, both of them progress slowly, paying attention to one another while they seek to understand. They don’t speak the same language, and they are not of the same species, but it doesn’t matter much, because affection knows other ways to get to comprehension. And it is about affection when she tries to teach him to fly, or when he, free, answers her call. Gently, the differences between them are overcome at each new stage of development, at each new victory. Until the completion of this cycle of goodwill that, being brief, becomes unforgettable.

SETE OSSOS E UMA MALDIÇÃOIn this book of horror stories, Rosa Amanda Strausz constructs apparently common stories that, through an expertly crafted suspense, become horrifying narratives. But, in this case, the fear doesn’t paralyze, on the contrary, it only increases the desire to get to the next page, something that requires strength. In “Seven bones and a curse” there’s no blood dripping or splattered brains, as is informed in the dust jacket. Nothing explicit or distasteful. In it, the reader’s imagination is in charge of creating the macabre scenes forged through an elegant text. And it is exactly this suggestion of terror, fantastic literature of the best kind, that makes it so compelling.

CHILDREN/YA FICTION

www.agenciariff.com.br

FICTION

Adélia PRADOAdriana LISBOA*Adriana LUNARDI **Alberto MARTINS Alexandre VIDAL PORTOAntonio PRATAAriano SUASSUNAArthur DAPIEVEBeatriz BRACHERCarlos Herculano LOPESCintia MOSCOVICHClaudia TAJESDodô AZEVEDOEmilio FRAIAFlávio CARNEIROJoão Luiz Anzanello CARRASCOZAJosé Luiz PASSOS*José Rubem FONSECA***Kledir RAMILLeticia WIERZCHOWSKILivia GARCIA-ROZALuis Fernando VERÍSSIMOLya LUFTLygia Fagundes TELLESMarcelo FERRONIMarcelo PIRESMaria Adelaide AMARALMaria Valéria REZENDERicardo LÍSIASSérgio RODRIGUESTony BELLOTTOVanessa BARBARAVitor RAMIL

NONFICTION

Carlos DOMINGOSEliane BRUM**Elio GASPARILuiz Alberto HANNSLuiz Eduardo SOARESMárcia ZOLADZRoberto DaMATTAVicente de BRITTO PEREIRAZuenir VENTURA

CLASSIC AUTHORS

Caio Fernando ABREUCarlos DRUMMOND DE ANDRADEÉrico VERÍSSIMOJoão CABRAL DE MELO NETO Jorge de LIMAJosé Cândido de CARVALHOMª Julieta DRUMMOND DE ANDRADEMILLÔR FernandesMario QUINTANAMoacyr SCLIAR*Otto Lara RESENDEPaulo Emílio SALES GOMESPaulo Mendes CAMPOSPaulo RÓNAIRachel de QUEIROZRicardo RAMOSSérgio PORTO

Brazil only(*) contact Nicole Witt(**) contact Anja Saile(***) Carmen Balcells

HIGHLIGHTS 2013/2014

© Gabriel Andrade

Lucia Riff . lucia@agenciariff.com.br