by Alison Entrekin (Translator), Alison Entrekin (Translator), Tatiana Salem Levy (Author)
From one of Granta's Best Young Brazilian Novelists comes a startling and powerful story about returning to one's origins in order to move forward. In Rio de Janeiro, a woman suffering from a mysterious illness, which is eroding her body and mind, decides to accept a challenge from her grandfather: to take the key to the house where he grew up - in the Turkish city of Smyrna - and open the door. As she embarks on this pilgrimage, she begins to write of her progress. The writing soon becomes an exploration of her family's legacy of displacement in Europe, told in several narrative strands. Sifting through family stories - her grandfather's migration from Turkey to Brazil, her parents' exile in Portugal under the Brazilian military dictatorship, her mother's death, and her own love affair with a violent man - she traces her family's history in a journey to make sense of the past and to understand her place in it. With an epic sweep of time and place - traversing Brazil, Turkey, and Portugal - this is a profoundly moving portrait of a young woman finding her way back into life. Spare, heartfelt, and evocative, The House in Smyrna is an unforgettable story from one of the most accomplished and original new voices in Brazil.
Format: Paperback
Pages: 160
Edition: UK
Publisher: Scribe UK
Published: 02 Jul 2015
ISBN 10: 1922247979
ISBN 13: 9781922247971
Prizes: Winner of English PEN Writers in Translation Award 2015.