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We're excited to announce that Saudade Toronto is Officially reopened! Come experience our cozy café, browse our curated collection of books, and discover authentic Portuguese products. We can't wait to welcome you back! We're excited to announce that Saudade Toronto is Officially reopened! Come experience our cozy café, browse our curated collection of books, and discover authentic Portuguese products. We can't wait to welcome you back!

SAUDADE TORONTO

On Earth As It Is Beneath

$25.00

SAUDADE TORONTO

On Earth As It Is Beneath

$25.00

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

Ana Paula Maia was born in Nova Iguaçu, Brazil, in 1977

She is an author and scriptwriter and has published seven novels, including O habitante das falhas subterráneas (2003), De gados e homens (2013), and the trilogy A saga dos brutos, comprising Entre rinhas de cachorros e porcos abatidos (2009), O trabalho sujo dos outros (2009) and Carvão animal (2011). Her books have been published in translation in Germany, Argentina, France, Italy, Serbia, the United States and Spain.

She is also the author of many short stories that appear in anthologies and which have been translated into languages including German, Croat, Spanish, English and Italian. Her novel A guerra dos bastardos (2007) won praise in Germany as among the best foreign detective fiction. As a scriptwriter she has worked on a wide range of projects for television, cinema and theatre.

The principal influences on her work date back to her childhood, and range from everyday violence to the consumption of books, films and music. She has won the Prêmio São Paulo de Literatura:

Melhor Romance do Ano prize two years in a row; in 2018 for her novel Assim na Terra como embaixo da Terra and in 2019 for Enterre Seus Mortos.

Translator

Padma Viswanathan is a Canadian-American writer and translator

Her novels have been published in eight countries and shortlisted for the PEN USA Prize, the Scotiabank Giller Prize, and others. She has published short fiction, essays and translations in Granta, The Boston Review, BRICK, and elsewhere. Full-length translations include São Bernardo, by Brazilian novelist Graciliano Ramos and Where We Stand, by Djamila Ribeiro. Her most recent novel, The Charterhouse of Padma, was published in 2024.

She is Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Arkansas-Fayetteville, where she is Founding Director of the Arkansas International Writer-at-Risk Residency Program.

Her English language translation of On Earth As it is Beneath by Ana Paula Maia was longlisted for the International Booker Prize 2026.

Language English

Print length 112 pages

ISBN-10 11917260105

ISBN-13 978-1917260107

dimension 13.34 × 1.27 × 19.69 cm