Project Description
15.000 copies sold of Small Chances in BrazilNatalia Timerman
Brazil
Natalia Timerman was born in 1981 in São Paulo. She is a psychiatrist from Unifesp, holds a master’s degree in psychology and is a PhD candidate in literature at USP. She published OUTCASTS: STORIES FROM A PRISON HOSPITAL and the collection of short stories CRACKS, finalist of the Jabuti Prize. Todavia published her novel EMPTY CUP which sold 38,000 copies following publication in February 2021, making it one of the best-selling books of the year. It was selected by the magazine Quatro Cinco Um as one of the best books of 2021.
© Renato Parada//
Before It Fades
How do you write what has been forgotten? Is it possible to lend a voice to someone who can no longer tell their own story? How do you accept that the forms of a text are always provisional? In Before It Fades (“Antes que apague”), these difficult questions unfold into others no less unsettling. The persistent search for a narrative form culminates in a moment of affirmation, when that provisional shape suddenly reveals itself to be, in all its instability, both necessary and urgent.
The theme is delicate and delicately presented, as the person immersed in the silence of late-stage Alzheimer’s is the narrator’s mother. As she recounts episodes from this woman’s life—or from the life of the person she once was—the daughter struggles to renegotiate the meanings of that essential relationship. She does so through repeated forays into the past and back again, by speaking with distant relatives, sifting through documents, and allowing chance to play its part.
As she churns through memories—her own and those of others—the protagonist discovers an impactful event her mother never once mentioned. Uncovering the secret hidden in that archive so common to so many families—the trove of what may be more comfortable not to know—haunts and transforms both the text and the character, but does not prevent them from resisting: “I write to you, mom; against you. But also for you.”
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Small Chances
While waiting for a flight, Natalia meets the palliative care physician who treated her father, Artur. The conversation reawakens in her the whole experience of loss, still fresh and full of scars. Artur was a doctor, so the news of the return of cancer is followed by the certainty of finality. Death becomes a family affair, and we follow with rare delicacy not only his physical decline, but its effects on the lives of his children, wife, and grandchildren. The narrator reconstructs this journey, which, although dramatic, is charged with the tenderness of memory. Small Chances (“As pequenas chances”) is a novel of extraordinary beauty, a sharp enquiry into family, remembrance, Judaism, life, and death.
Natalia Timerman follows the path of authors such as Karl Ove Knausgård and Annie Ernaux in creating a powerful portrait of grief and love.
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Empty Glass
Abandoned women. Literature has always been permeated with tragic stories of fascinating figures, such as Medea and Dido, who fall apart in the face of male abandonment. Now it’s the turn of Natalia Timerman and her Empty Glass (“Copo vazio”). The novel tells the story of Mirela, an intelligent and successful woman, who ends up submerged in disturbing affections when she falls in love with Pedro. First, she experiences what Clarice Lispector called ‘unbearable happiness’. From there, it’s only one step to doubt and discouragement.
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Outcasts
This book was born out of Timerman’s work at the Penitentiary System Hospital Centre, where she worked in the psychiatric ward. The result is not a book about psychiatric care in a prison hospital. What the author does in Outcasts (“Desterros”) is a complex, engaging narrative with a literary dimension, about an experience of reality that is often impermeable, meaningless and harsh, and which requires imagination, empathy and listening in order to gain meaning and continuity, without letting the individuals fade away. In between the many stories of prisoners, wardens and doctors, the story of Donamingo runs throughout the book: an Angolan woman imprisoned for drug trafficking, she discovers she is pregnant while in prison. There is also Gessé, who, in order not to be taken out of hospital, enlarged his belly wound, leaving his innards exposed. In literary prose, the author tells the patients’ stories without omitting her surroundings and herself: ”I, too, became part of the absurd.”
RIGHTS
NOVELS
Before It Fades (“Antes que apague“)
São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, forthcoming May 2026, 176 p.
Small Chances (“As pequenas chances“)
São Paulo: Todavia 2023, 208 p.
English sample translation available by Zoë Perry
Voted Best Brazilian Novel 2023 by Quatro cinco um
15.000 copies sold
Portugal: Tinta da China 2024
Empty Glass (“Copo vazio“)
São Paulo: Todavia 2021, 144 p.
Film rights sold to Maria Farinha
English sample translation available by Zoë Perry
38.000 copies sold
NON-FICTION
Outcasts: Stories from a Prison Hospital (“Desterros – Histórias de um Hospital-Prisão”)
São Paulo: Editora Elefante 2017, Todavia 2025, 176 p.
English sample translation available by Zoë Perry
SHORT STORIES
Cracks (“Rachaduras“)
São Paulo: Quelônio 2019, 146 p.
Finalist of the Prêmio Jabuti 2020
English sample translation of “A True Story” and “From Your Arms” by Meg Weeks available
CHILDREN´S BOOKS
Lucas’s Glasses (“Os Óculos do Lucas”)
(Together with Bel Tatit; ill. by Veridiana Scarpelli)
São Paulo: Brinque-Book 2022, 32 p.
PARTICIPATION IN ANTHOLOGIES
After the End. Conversations on Literature and the Anthropocene (“Depois do Fim. Conversas sobre Literatura e Antropoceno”)
São Paulo: Editora Instante 2022
Love Mail (“Correio Amoroso”)
Rio de Janeiro: Oficina Raquel 2022
Carnival Sins (“Pecados Carnavais”)
São Paulo:Carapaça/Quelônio 2018
