What can literature do? What horizons can it reach? Or, more specifically, what can literature do in a world that is collapsing, haunted by global warming, pandemics, the rise of the far right, and increasing poverty, among other tragedies? In short, in a reality in which everything seems more urgent than literature? Through writing that incorporates the dynamics of The Unfolding World (“O Mundo Desdobrável: Ensaios para depois do Fim“), Carola Saavedra brings together themes such as the end of the world, ancestry, permaculture, psychoanalysis, literature written by women, indigenous literature, reflections on Carolina Maria de Jesus, Hilda Hilst, Clarice Lispector and many other exponents of the arts, cinema and phylosophy. Also featured are Don Quixote and the birth of the modern novel, as well as the idea of literature beyond writing, literature as an oracle, revelation and the opening up of new and unexpected possibilities. So, what can literature do? In this beautiful and vibrant book, it seems it can do a lot.

The Mantle of the Night (“O Manto da Noite “) is a dreamlike journey through the South American Cordillera, in which ancestry and identity are blurred – and confirmed – through the many fragments that piece together the past, the present and the future. Prose, diary, theatre – these are the narrative genres that outline the Cordillera that runs through this novel. In an introspective foray through Latin America and its past marked by invasions, massacres and struggles, Carola Saavedra turns to individual issues while expanding into a collective universe.

With Somnolent Weapons. A Bildungsroman (“Com Armas Sonolentas. Um Romance de Formação“) revolves around three women: Firstly Anna, an aspiring actress of humble origins who sees a German filmmaker as her means of being taken seriously and achieving fame and recognition. Moving to his home village in Germany soon after meeting, reality, exacerbated by not knowing the language, is very different to her expectations. Then there is melancholic Maike, a young German girl who, for no apparent reason, decides to study Portuguese at university to the disgust of her parents, both lawyers. She gradually discovers that her unlikely connection with the language and Brazil is growing stronger. And there is a third character, unnamed, who at the age of fourteen is forced by her mother to leave her home in the interior of Brazil to work as a domestic servant in Rio de Janeiro, where, like so many similar cases, complex relationships will develop in her dealings with her employers.

They are three very distinct, but strongly interconnected, women who experience a growing situation of abandonment and exile – whether geographical or emotional. The journey that each one of them embarks on is a way of “returning home”, in the quest to unveil their true identity.

Carola Saavedra’s new book The Inventory of Missing Things (“O Inventário das Coisas Ausentes”) is a multilayered novel about two lovers, their families and their past. While the protagonist has always been a disappointment to his father, a former resistance fighter during Brazil’s dictatorship, his girlfriend Nina, divorced after a smothering marriage, has a troubled family history dominated by religion and science. When they meet again 14 years after Nina’s surprising departure, they get closer again, but it may be too late. With her characteristically meaningful insinuations and wonderful prose, Saavedra makes this novel a fascinating reading experience.

Landscape with Dromedary (“Paisagem com Dromedário”) is a fascinating piece of remembrance and reflection. Withdrawn to a volcanic island, the plastic artist Érika records her thoughts about recent events and memories on tape. It is her attempt to come to terms with her relationship with Alex and figure out who she is without him and their mutual friend Karen, whom they both left behind when she fell terminally ill. In beautiful and concise language, Saavedra questions the traditional idea of relationships and takes the reader to the inner self of an unusual woman.

In Blue Flowers (“Flores Azuis”), Saavedra tells an ingenious story about a man who undergoes a deep transformation. When the recently divorced Marcos opens some letters addressed to his previous tenant and referring to the end of a love story, his whole life begins to fall apart. The more he feels drawn to the mysterious A. who signs the letters, the more he questions his own relationships to the women around him. And maybe the letters are not reaching him merely by chance after all… Written in refined prose, Blue Flowers plays with what the unsaid can achieve in a very elaborate way.