Brazil's Black authors changing the literary landscape

• Some of their works have been so successful that they're being translated into English, a rarity for many Latin American books.

Details: Incoming President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva recently recommended Itamar Vieira Jr.'s bestselling 2019 novel, "Torto Arado."

• The story is told from the perspective of two sisters and a mystery woman after an accident leaves one of them mute, complicating how they traverse daily life in their predominantly Black settlement.
• The English translation, "Crooked Plow," will be published next June, and the story is set to be adapted as an HBO series.
• Geovani Martins' 2018 short story collection, "The Sun on My Head" ("O Sol na Cabeça"), was translated into English this year. Martins weaves different stories about growing up in Rio de Janeiro's favelas, in the vein of "City of God."

On the nonfiction side, Djamila Ribeiro's 2019 work "Pequeno Manual Antirracista" (The little antiracist handbook) has remained a bestseller.

• This summer's "Racismo brasileiro: Uma história da formação do país" (Racism in Brazil: A history of the country's formation) from Ynaê Lopes dos Santos has been gaining traction.

What they're saying: “To talk about Afro-Brazilian lives is to talk about many aspects of the Americas … It’s been amazing that this novel resonated in so many countries, but human experiences that are both unique and universal can do that,” Vieira Jr. tells Axios Latino by email in Portuguese.

Of note: One of Brazil's most famous writers, 19th-century author Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis, was biracial. Only in the past few years have renderings and paintings of him shown his Blackness.

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