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4.0 

Crooked Plow

By Itamar Vieira Junior & Johnny Lorenz
Crooked Plow by Itamar Vieira Junior & Johnny Lorenz digital book - Fable

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Publisher Description

The prize winning international bestseller - 800,000 copies sold in Brazil

Shortlisted for The International Booker Prize 2024
Longlisted for the Dublin Literary Award


'I heard  our grandmother asking what we were doing.'"Say something!" she demanded, threatening to tear out our tongues. Little did she know that one of us was holding her tongue in her hand.'

Deep in Brazil's neglected Bahia hinterland, two sisters find an ancient knife beneath their grandmother's bed and, momentarily mystified by its power, decide to taste its metal. The shuddering violence that follows marks their lives and binds them together forever.

Heralded as a new masterpiece, this fascinating and gripping story about the lives of subsistence farmers in Brazil's poorest region, three generations after the abolition of slavery, is at once fantastic and realist, covering themes of family, spirituality, slavery and its aftermath, and political struggle.

Translated by Johnny Lorenz.

232 Reviews

4.0
“I wasn't sure if I was gonna like it but i ended up enjoying it a lot. it's been a while since I've read through a book that fast, I couldn't put it down.”
“A story of two sisters of an enslaved family. An unfortunate tragedy leaves one without a tongue and one with an injury. The book entwines their life story with mysticism, surviving classism, and individual growth. Since I read the book in English, I'm not sure if certain things were lost in translation. There were certain elements which seemed to neither add nor take away to the story. There was a bit of clutter to the story-telling. I would recommend the book strictly on the subject matter of debt slavery which is unusual to see presented in works of fiction. But keep in mind certain parts are a bit cluttered and perhaps don't translate very well.”

About Itamar Vieira Junior

Itamar Vieira Junior was born in Salvador, Bahia, in 1979. He holds a doctorate in Ethnic and African Studies. Before Crooked Plow, he published a collection of short stories entitled The Executioner’s Prayer, which was nominated for Brazil’s biggest literary award, the Jabuti. Crooked Plow won the prestigious 2018 LeYa Award in Portugal.

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