Project Description

Natalia TimermanNatalia 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 30,000 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

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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.

Quotes

Small Chances

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Outcasts

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 persons fade away. The author knows that the most important thing is not to judge, but to listen and weave the fabric of meaning, often hidden, often non-existent, but which appears, emerges and is constructed within the encounter, the conversation, and the stories that are developed through talking and listening.

RIGHTS

NOVELS
Small Chances (“As pequenas chances“)
São Paulo: Todavia 2023, 208 p.
English sample translation available by Zoë Perry
Lisbon: Tinta da China

Empty Cup (“Copo vazio“)
São Paulo: Todavia 2021, 144 p.
Film rights sold to Maria Farinha
English sample translation available by Zoë Perry

NON-FICTION
Outcasts: Stories from a Prison Hospital (“Desterros – histórias de um hospital-prisão”)
São Paulo: Editora Elefante 2017, 192 p.

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

Pecados carnavais (“Carnival Sins”)

São Paulo:Carapaça/Quelônio 2018