BOOK

Nearly a century after his wrenching death, the Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa (1888–1935) remains one of our most enigmatic writers. Believing he could do “more in dreams than Napoleon,” yet haunted by the specter of hereditary madness, Pessoa invented dozens of alter egos, or “heteronyms,” under whose names he wrote in Portuguese, English, and French. Unsurprisingly, this “most multifarious of writers” (Guardian) has long eluded a definitive biographer—but in renowned translator and Pessoa scholar Richard Zenith, he has met his match.

Relatively unknown in his lifetime, Pessoa was all but destined for literary oblivion when the arc of his afterlife bent, suddenly and improbably, toward greatness, with the discovery of some 25,000 unpublished papers left in a large, wooden trunk. Drawing on this vast archive of sources as well as on unpublished family letters, and skillfully setting the poet’s life against the nationalist currents of twentieth-century European history, Zenith at last reveals the true depths of Pessoa’s teeming imagination and literary genius.

Much as Nobel laureate José Saramago brought a single heteronym to life in The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis, Zenith traces the backstories of virtually all of Pessoa’s imagined personalities, demonstrating how they were projections, spin-offs, or metamorphoses of Pessoa himself. A solitary man who had only one, ultimately platonic love affair, Pessoa used his and his heteronyms’ writings to explore questions of sexuality, to obsessively search after spiritual truth, and to try to chart a way forward for a benighted and politically agitated Portugal.

Although he preferred the world of his mind, Pessoa was nonetheless a man of the places he inhabited, including not only Lisbon but also turn-of-the-century Durban, South Africa, where he spent nine years as a child. Zenith re-creates the drama of Pessoa’s adolescence—when the first heteronyms emerged—and his bumbling attempts to survive as a translator and publisher. Zenith introduces us, too, to Pessoa’s bohemian circle of friends, and to Ophelia Quieroz, with whom he exchanged numerous love letters. Pessoa reveals in equal force the poet’s unwavering commitment to defending homosexual writers whose books had been banned, as well as his courageous opposition to Salazar, the Portuguese dictator, toward the end of his life. In stunning, magisterial prose, Zenith contextualizes Pessoa’s posthumous literary achievements—especially his most renowned work, The Book of Disquiet.

A modern literary masterpiece, Pessoa simultaneously immortalizes the life of a literary maestro and confirms the enduring power of Pessoa’s work to speak prophetically to the disconnectedness of our modern world.

Paperback

That Hair written by Djaimilia Pereira de Almeida and translated by Eric M. B. Becker. 

A Best Translation of the Year at World Literature Today

Finalist for the 2021 PEN Translation Prize

That Hair consists of universal subjects of racism, feminism, colonialism, immigration, identity and memory.

"The story of my curly hair," says Mila, the narrator of Djaimilia Pereira de Almeida's autobiographically inspired tragicomedy, "intersects with the story of at least two countries and, by extension, the underlying story of the relations among several continents: a geopolitics." Mila is the Luanda-born daughter of a black Angolan mother and a white Portuguese father.

She arrives in Lisbon at the tender age of three, and feels like an outsider from the jump. Through the lens of young Mila's indomitably curly hair, her story interweaves memories of childhood and adolescence, family lore spanning four generations, and present-day reflections on the internal and external tensions of a European and African identity.

In layered and luscious prose, That Hair enriches and deepens a global conversation, challenging in necessary ways our understanding of racism, feminism, and the double inheritance of colonialism, not yet fifty years removed from Angola's independence. It's the story of coming of age as a black woman in a nation at the edge of Europe that is also rapidly changing, of being considered an outsider in one's own country, and the impossibility of"returning" to a homeland one doesn't in fact know.

Author

Djaimilia Pereira de Almeida was born in Luanda, Angola, and grew up in Lisbon. She has a PhD in literary theory from the University of Lisbon. Her stories and essays have appeared in Granta.com, Words Without Borders, Granta Portugal, Observador, Somos Libros, Ler, serrote, and 451.

Translator

Eric M. B. Becker is a literary translator, critic, writer, and editor of Words without Borders. He is the recipient of fellowships and residencies from the National Endowment for the Arts, Fulbright, PEN America, and the Louis Armstrong House Museum.

Becker has translated work by Mia Couto, Paulo Coelho, Lygia Fagundes Telles, Djaimilia Pereira de Almeida, and Daniel Galera, among others. His work has been published in The New York Times, Foreign Affairs, Freeman's, Electric Literature, and many other publications. He is editor of several anthologies and magazine features devoted to the literature of Brazil.

Language English

Print length 200 pages

Item weight 159g

Dimensions 12.85 × 1.07 × 19.84 cm

On EarthAs It is Beneath written by Ana Paula Maia and Translated by Padma Viswanathan.

INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZE LONGLISTED 2026

On land where enslaved people were once tortured and murdered, the state built a penal colony in the wilderness, where inmates could be rehabilitated, but never escape. Now, decades later, and having only succeeded in trapping men, not changing them for the better, its operations are winding down. But in the prison's waning days, a new horror is unleashed: every full-moon night, the inmates are released, the warden is armed with rifles, and the hunt begins.  Every man plans his escape, not knowing if his end will come at the hands of a familiar face, or from the unknown dangers beyond the prison walls. Ana Paula Maia has once again delivered a bracing vision of our potential for violence, and our collective failure to account for the consequences of our social and political action, or inaction. No crime is committed out of view for this novelist, and her raw, brutal power enlists us all as witness.

Author

Author Giovanna Madalosso translated by Bruna Dantas Lobato

 NEW YORK TIMES 100 NOTABLE BOOK OF 2025
NPR BEST BOOK OF 2025

Nominated for the 2026 Dublin Literary Award

The English-language debut of one of the most exciting voices in contemporary Brazilian literature, The Tokyo Suite is a gripping exploration of the complexities of modern family dynamics and the tensions hiding just under the surface of ordinary lives. 

It’s a seemingly ordinary morning when Maju, a nanny, boards a bus with Cora, the young girl she’s been caring for, and disappears. The abduction, an act as impulsive as it is extreme, sets off a series of events that will force each character to confront their deepest fears and desires.

Fernanda, Cora's mother, is a successful executive who is so engulfed in her own personal crisis that she initially fails to notice her daughter's disappearance. Her marriage is strained, and she finds solace in an affair, distancing herself further from her family. Meanwhile, her husband, overwhelmed by the complexities of their domestic life, remains emotionally detached. As Maju navigates the streets of São Paulo with Cora, the “white army” of nannies, a term coined by Fernanda, seems to watch her every move, heightening her sense of paranoia and urgency. 

Madalosso’s narrative delves deep into the human psyche, examining themes of maternal guilt, societal expectations, and the search for personal identity. Rich and multi-layered, The Tokyo Suite is a poignant and gripping tale that captures the essence of modern urban life and the lengths to which people will go to reclaim a sense of control and meaning in their lives. 

Author Carlos Enes and Translated to English by Diniz Borges,

“Azorean History Themes: Islands of Struggle and Resilience” is a powerful and engaging journey through the often-overlooked History of the Azores. In this compelling collection, historian Carlos Enes explores pivotal moments of resistance, mythmaking, and identity formation in the archipelago — from the heroic stand of Terceira Island against Spanish domination in the 16th century to the long fight against fascism and the shaping of Azorean autonomy in the 20th.
These essays shine a light on the voices of the “minors” — artisans, workers, and everyday citizens — who helped forge a rebellious, democratic, and resilient Azorean spirit. This is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the deep roots and dynamic evolution of the Azorean identity across time».

Autor

Carlos Enes

Born (1951) in Vila Nova, Terceira Island. He graduated in History from the Faculty of Letters of Lisbon (1979) and has been a secondary school teacher since 1978. He also taught at the Universidade Eduardo Mondlane (1981-84), Maputo, and at the Universidade Aberta (1996-2003), Lisbon. Pedagogical supervisor of the Educational Branch of the History Department of the Faculty of Letters of the University of Lisbon, 1988-89.

He has a master’s degree in Contemporary History (1993) from Universidade Nova de Lisboa and has been studying Azorean History for several years. With two dozen books and articles published, he has taken part in colloquia and forums (around 40) at a wide variety of institutions. He has collaborated extensively in the Enciclopédia Açoriana (online edition), the História dos Açores (History of the Azores), published by the IAC, and the Dicionário de Educadores Portugueses (Dictionary of Portuguese Educators).

In the field of ethnography, he has studied Carnival and the Holy Spirit festivities in Terceira. In the field of culture, he curated several exhibitions, participated in juries for the selection of works to be subsidised by the DRAC, and was a member of the Regional Council for Culture.

He is the author of the novel “Terra do Bravo” (2005), out of print, “Cicatriz da Chuva”, poetry (2016), “A Oposição Democrática em Ponta Delgada – Das eleições de 1969 à Cooperativa Sextante” (2020), out of print, “A Galope numa Noite de Búzios” (2023), “Infinito sem Nome” (2024), “As danças do Entrudo” (1980), “A economia Açoriana entre as duas guerras mundiais” (1994); Luís da Silva Ribeiro, Obras, vol. IV, “Escritos Político-administrativos” (introductory study and organisation) (1995); “A Casa dos Açores em Lisboa” (1996); “A Memória Liberal na Ilha Terceira” (2001); “Vila Nova – pelos caminhos da sua história” (2011); “A fotografia nos Açores” (2011); “Álbum Terceirense”, 4 volumes (2007-18); “Angra do Heroísmo – Alma e Memória” (2019).

Translator

Diniz Borges

Diniz Borges was born in 1958 on the island of Terceira. At age ten, he emigrated with his family to the United States. He has a BA in Social Science and an MA in the humanities with a thesis exploring the past’s role in American ethnic literature. He has taught Portuguese language and culture at Tulare Union High School, College of the Sequoias, and California State University, Fresno. He is the founding director of the Portuguese Beyond Borders Institute at Fresno State. He has published ten books in Portuguese and translated or co-translated seven different books. He has also organized several anthologies.

Written by Clarice Lispector, translated to English by Idra Navey.

The Passion According to G.H., Clarice Lispector’s mystical novel of 1964, concerns a well-to-do Rio sculptress, G.H., who enters her maid’s room, sees a cockroach crawling out of the wardrobe, and, panicking, slams the door—crushing the cockroach—and then watches it die. At the end of the novel, at the height of a spiritual crisis, comes the most famous and most genuinely shocking scene in Brazilian literature…

Lispector wrote that of all her works this novel was the one that “best corresponded to her demands as a writer.”

About Author

Clarice Lispector (1920–1977), the greatest Brazilian writer of the twentieth century, has been called "astounding" (Rachel Kushner), "a penetrating genius" (Donna Seaman, Booklist ), and "one of the twentieth century's most mysterious writers" (Orhan Pamuk). Caetano Veloso is one of Brazil's foremost musicians. Idra Novey is the award-winning author of the novels  Those Who Knew  and  Ways to Disappear . She teaches fiction in the Creative Writing Program at Princeton University.

A noite chegou, e com ela trouxe o soninho.

Os animais também têm sono, sabias?
Puxa as tiras e descobre onde os animais dormem, de noite e de dia! Um jogo de escondidas, perfeito para mãos pequeninas.

Written by Isabel Minhos Martins and illustrated by Bernardo P. Carvalho.

Leve prosa poética sobre a doce e afetuosa reação de uma mãe aos atos e às descobertas do filho. Evidencia a importância de cada gesto do filho, por menor que seja, para o coração da mãe. Ideal para crianças que passam pelo processo de alfabetização.

Author Clara Drummond & translated to English by Daniel Hahn.

Role Play is a searing satire narrated by a wealthy young woman in Rio on the verge of a class-consciousness awakening.

Vivian is a curator, not just at her gallery gig in Rio de Janeiro, but in every aspect of her life. Her apartment has designer armchairs. Her wallet is Comme des Garçons. Everything is selected and arranged, even her lovers and friends. In Vivian’s world, everything comes in excess, including her own caustic selfawareness. As she informs us, “I’m a misandrist and a misogynist,” but she is fond of gay men, “the one type of human you can properly get along with as equals.”

Role Play examines the superabundances of Brazilian elites— their art, ethics, and monied ambivalence in the face of social inequality, machismo, and violence. As sharp and sparkling as broken champagne flutes, Clara Drummond’s prose is seductively frank and unflinching in its depiction of wealth’s power to warp the self

Widely considered the greatest work by the foremost Brazilian author of the twentieth century, The Double Death of Quincas Water-Bray comes to Penguin Classics in a new translation by the dean of Portuguese-language translators, Gregory Rabassa. It tells the story of Joaquim Soares da Cunha, who drops dead after he abandons his life of upstanding citizenship to assume the identity of Quincas Water-Bray, a “champion drunk” and bum who is whisked along on a postmortem journey that climaxes in his loss at sea.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

From the winner of the prestigious FIL Prize in Romance Languages comes this masterpiece saga, set in the twilight of the late twentieth century, of two clashing families in coastal Portugal.

With the grand sweep of Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels, this enduring tale transports us to a picturesque seaside town haunted by its colonial past.

Considered one of Europe’s most influential contemporary writers, Portuguese novelist Lídia Jorge has captivated international audiences for decades. With the publication of The Wind Whistling in the Cranes, English-speaking readers can now experience the thrum of her signature poetic style and her delicately braided multicharacter plotlines, and witness the heroic journey of one of the most maddening, and endearing, characters in literary fiction.

Exquisitely translated by Margaret Jull Costa and Annie McDermott, this breathtaking saga, set in the now-distant 1990s, tells the story of the landlords and tenants of a derelict canning factory in southern Portugal. The wealthy, always-scheming Leandros have owned the building since before the Carnation Revolution, a peaceful coup that toppled a four-decade-long dictatorship and led to Portugal’s withdrawal from its African colonies. It was Leandro matriarch Dona Regina who handed the keys to the Matas, the bustling family from Cape Verde who saw past the dusty machinery and converted the space into a warm—and welcoming—home.

When Dona Regina is found dead outside the factory on a holiday weekend, her body covered in black ants, her granddaughter, Milene, investigates. Aware that her aunts and uncles, who are off on vacation, will berate her inability to articulate what has just happened, she approaches the factory riddled with anxiety. Hours later, the Matas return home to find this strange girl hiding behind their clotheslines, and with caution, they take her in . . .

“Some said that Milene had been found wandering near the golf course. . . . Still others that she must have spent those five days at the beach, eating raw fish and sleeping out in the open . . .”

Days later, the Leandros realize that Milene has become hopelessly entangled with their tenants, and their fear of political and financial ruin sets off a series of events that threatens to uproot the lives of everyone involved. Narrated with passionate, incandescent prose, The Wind Whistling in the Cranesestablishes Lídia Jorge as a novelist of extraordinary international resonance.

Devin Meireles

a narrative photo expedition about finding kinship in a faraway land.

Whites Can Dance Too written by Kalaf Epalanga and translated by Daniel Hahn.

Hours before performing at one of Europe's most iconic music festivals, Kalaf is detained on suspicion of being an illegal immigrant. Trapped in his precarity, his thoughts soon strum to the beat of kuduro, the blistering, techno-infused Angolan music which has taken him from Luanda to Kristiansund, Beirut to Lisbon. Shifting between his reflections while incarcerated, the stories of a friend at the heart of Lisbon's dance scene and those of the immigration policeman who holds Kalaf's fate in his hands, Whites Can Dance Too is at once an exhilarating novel and a transporting paean to cultural roots, to freedom and to love.

Author

Kalaf Epalanga is an Angolan musician and writer.

Best known internationally for fronting the Lisbon-based dance collective Buraka Som Sistema, he is a celebrated columnist in Angola and Portugal.

Whites Can Dance Too is his acclaimed debut novel; it was first published in Portugal by Editorial Caminho (2017). Epalanga is currently based in Berlin.

Translator

Daniel Hahn is a writer, editor and translator, with thirty-something books to his name. He has translated fiction from Portuguese, Spanish and French (from Europe, Africa and the Americas) and non-fiction by writers ranging from Portuguese Nobel laureate José Saramago to Brazilian footballer Pelé. He has written works of narrative non-fiction for adults and the text of a picture-book for children; and edited a number of reference books including "The Ultimate Book Guides", a series of reading guides for children and teenagers.

His books have won the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize and the Blue Peter Book Award.

Language English 

ISBN-10 0571371442

ISBN-13 978-0571371440

Item weight 276 g

Dimensions 12.8 × 1.37 × 19.81 cmg

From the award-winning writer Djaimilia Pereira de Almeida, a haunting exploration of the memories of three men and the reverberations of slavery, colonialism, and empire.

Three men haunt these pages. Perhaps they are tormented ghosts who cannot find rest. All three have been expelled in some way, sent on solitary journeys into the night. Celestino, an old slave trader, returns to the solitude of his home and garden after a life of horrors. Boa Morte da Silva, an Angolan who served on the Portuguese side in the Colonial War and has become a valet in Lisbon, writes endlessly to his daughter, asking for her forgiveness. And Bruma, an enslaved man, initiates a young writer, Eça de Queirós, into the world of literature.

In discrete yet overlapping tales, Djaimilia Pereira de Almeida’s Three Stories of Forgetting explores the experiences of those who live within the legacies of slavery, colonialism, and the Portuguese Empire. In these unstable chapters, we find incarnations of our despair at the questions that history does not answer, and allegories that may yet reveal new ways of seeing through the dark.

Language English

Print length 304 pages

ISBN-10 0374612099

ISBN-13 978-0374612092

A Very Short History of Portugal is written by A.H. De Oliveira Marques. 

From the moment the first men set foot in the Iberian Peninsula, around 2000 b.C., until the end of the «New State» and the independence of the ex‑colonies, through various kings, sea voyages to India and other destinations, these pages have a lot to tell.

The history of Portugal is long and complex, and so Oliveira Marques, one of the most renowned Portuguese historians, began by writing it down in three volumes which became a classic of Portuguese historiography. Based on them, he also prepared this very short version, which summarises all crucial events. This rare, small‑format book retains all the rigour and historical breadth of longer editions, and is as useful for scholars as it is for inquisitive people.

Foste a maneira mais bonita de errar written by Pedro Chagas Freitas.

 Foste a maneira mais bonita de errar, o livro em que Pedro Chagas Freitas volta aos grandes romances, com uma história de força e superação. Um livro de amores possíveis e impossíveis carregados de determinação e força de viver. 

Uma história de uma mulher corajosa que, mesmo depois de a vida a levar a enfrentar vários desafios, nunca desiste de ser quem é e aprende a reinventar-se num mundo que insiste em não deixá-la ser forte. 

Mais do que um romance, este livro é uma lição de vida, contada no estilo único de Pedro Chagas Freitas, que parece sussurrar-nos ao ouvido.

Uma história incrível, viciante e comovente, que nos mostra a importância do amor e de nunca deixarmos de ser quem somos.

Autor

Pedro Chagas Freitas escreve. Publicou 22 das mais de 150 obras que já criou. Foi, ou ainda é, jornalista, redactor publicitário, guionista, operário fabril, barman, nadador salvador, jogador de futebol, e muitas outras coisas igualmente desinteressantes. Orienta desorientadas sessões de escrita criativa por todo o país e arredores. Gosta de gatos, de cães e de pessoas. Não gosta de eufemismos e de bacalhau assado.
Tem mais de 100.000 fãs na sua página de Facebook. 

written by Clarice Lispector. Language in Portuguese.

Há livros que desviam para sempre o curso de uma literatura inteira. Não o fazem sozinhos - ora ecoam as vanguardas da sua época, ora rasgam preceitos vigentes; em casos mais raros, antecipam um certo futuro.

É assim com Perto do coração selvagem, romance de estreia de Clarice Lispector. Publicado no ano em que a escritora completou 23 anos, conta a história de Joana: desde a infância marcada pela morte do pai e pela solidão do colégio interno, até à idade adulta, com um casamento longe do sonhado, a maternidade, a paixão por um homem enigmático e, por fim, uma inevitável dispersão do eu, da identidade, do rumo da vida.

Joana é uma mulher supremamente livre, não confinável aos limites do seu tempo, indisponível para conter a sua voz, o seu pensamento ou o seu desejo vital, determinada a não dar passos que não sejam os seus rumo ao coração da existência. Enquanto acedemos à intimidade desta criação de Clarice - por entre admiráveis epifanias e monólogos interiores - chegamos mais perto da genialidade da sua criadora.

Dialogando, mesmo se inadvertidamente, com Virginia Woolf, Hermann Hesse ou James Joyce, na reflexão sobre as inquietações da modernidade, este romance subsiste como um clarão na literatura em lingua portuguesa, valendo a Clarice Lispector toda a admiração dos leitores, da crítica e dos pares.