Escalavra

In a backlands hamlet, a man and his boy live side by side in a silence as heavy as stone. The father hardly speaks to the child, and then only in short words, so that both of them dream on what goes unsaid. Their quiet routine is unsettled when a teacher arrives in the village, against the wishes of the local powerful, who want the people kept ignorant and their labour cheap. The story is told, or sung, in an old oral manner, each word grinding against the next like the blocks of a megalithic tomb, raw as scraped skin.

AI-generated summary

About the book

Form

Novel

Length

152 pages in the original

Genres

Family (assigned by AI)

Set in

Brazil

First published

2024 by Amarcord

Author's age

57 when first published

ISBN

9786585854146 (original)