»Without accusing or judging – the author says she didn’t write with that intention – Tatiana, deep down, points to at least one culprit in this and so many other women’s stories: the patriarchal, sexist society, which ensures that many of us prefer never to tell what we have experienced. And that, consequently, almost every man gets away with it. It’s better not to tell, say her friends, her psychoanalyst, her boyfriends, the world. It’s a good thing Tatiana decided to speak out.«
Renata Piza, ELLE Brasil

»In an intimate and powerful narrative, delicate and cutting at the same time as it mixes present and past, memory and smouldering life, Tatiana tries to understand the fabric of her trauma, how it shapes her life, how difficult it is to break down the mental structures generated by abuse.
How fortunate for us, the readers. Tatiana Salem Levy, at the height of her maturity and excellence, tells it all.«
Patrícia Melo

»I think you gave a hug to words, you gave a hug to so many girls, to so many women who have been through this and needed to speak out. You were the voice that spoke out. And for that I thank you as a woman, as a person who wants us to have a better country.«
Eliana Alves Cruz, Trilha de Letras

»Tatiana Salem Levy faces her demons and writes her bravest book yet. She has achieved a great feat: in Better Not Tell, published by Todavia, she tackles extremely delicate issues that are urgently under discussion throughout the country by mobilising a range of extra-fictional resources, while holding readers captive with the suspense and surprises that appear as the pages turn, in the best novelistic tradition.«
Estadão

»Tatiana opens up a narrative about central issues that women experience throughout their lives. By writing in a personal way about what she has experienced intimately, she enters into a dialogue with the existence of almost all of us.«
Segundo Caderno/O Globo

»Every word matters, moves, carries the others, anticipates so many more. Better Not Tell is one of those complex and brilliant books that allow us infinite analogies of the “as much as” type. As visceral as it is millimetrically calculated to be a great work; as intimate (we dive into diaries) as it is comprehensive and easily recognizable in the history of so many women; as well-written as it is unbearably painful; as scandalously feminine as it is compulsory reading for men.«
Folha de São Paulo

»Better Not Tell, they might think you’ve hit on him. Better Not Tell, just imagine the impact it will have on the family. Better Not Tell, he doesn’t want to be exposed. Better Not Tell, maybe no one will believe it. Better Not Tell, she’ll be sad. Better Not Tell, but it’s good that Tatiana Salem Levy did. (…) With this beautiful book in the world, we cling to it with the certainty that we are not alone. The story is Tatiana Salem Levy’s, but it could be any one of ours.«
Quatro cinco um

»I was moved by the courage of the story (…). In short: another great book by @tatisalemlevy.«
Gregório Duvivier, actor, comedian, and poet

»Better tell, even more so by a great writer. I’m absolutely impressed.«
Roberta Martinelli, publicist and curator

»This is not an easy subject to write about, but Levy has pulled it off. The result is an immediate, powerful novel that should gain her talent wider recognition.«
The Sunday Times

»A powerful act of female solidarity.«
Financial Times

»Beautifully paced … It is a reckoning and a rebirth; an unsparing look at the consequences of gendered violence, and of the complex history of a city, a land and a people.«
The Irish Times

»The author’s focus on a corrupted body is interesting. A body that, in the eyes of the world, is just another body, but which the person who inhabits it feels as the epitome of shame. Once again the victim takes responsibility for the actions of the abuser, a distressing experience that Salem Levy portrays to perfection.«
Paula Bonet, El País

5 star rating/recommendation:
»Vista Chinesa is a delicate exercise in assembling: on the one hand, Salem Levy raises the precariousness of identity that follows the suffering of rape; on the other, she executes a meticulous portrait of the socio-political violence of a country like Brazil, deeply divided by poorly functioning integration policies and which, during the years between the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympic Games, projected an image of luxury that did nothing more than radicalise this gap. The two elements of the story, of course, are soon coupled together like the two poles of a magnet.«
Zenda Libros

»That is the great thing and it is what literature can do – to put into words what is unbearable. (…) Vista Chinesa is a slim book, a stunning piece of literature and also an image of society. Intimacy becomes public and the personal becomes political.«
Deutschlandfunk

»A book full of beauty, depth and space for reflection. The author does not exploit her story, but in a sense unfolds it to analyse it, and the way she does this, with prudence, economy and veracity, makes this slim book unusual.«
FAZ

»An impressive power, which grabs us by the throat right from the very first page and carries us right inside the book, as if the book were the forest itself, to be experienced with extreme suffering, eyes half-closed, maximum harshness.«
Julián Fuks

»Of impressive literary brilliance.«
Expresso

»Vista Chinesa is one of those kinds of book that no matter how much time passes are not forgotten.«
Público, 5 Stars

»There are few life-changing books. Tatiana’s short novel seems to have that potential.«
José Eduardo Agualusa

»How do we write about something we don’t talk about? Out of fear, shame or a sense of guilt that often comes from the judgment of others, the subject is taboo and little reported on by victims. In Vista Chinesa, Tatiana Salem Levy’s new novel, however, it is on every page.«
Folha de S.Paulo

»Despite its mere 120 pages, the book is an incredibly intense and dense narrative. Levy has succeeded in developing a style in her novel that brilliantly captures the main character’s struggle with what she has experienced and with her memory. With this book, she has undoubtedly caught up with the greatest authors of Brazilian literature such as Lispector and Scliar.«
Jüdische Allgemeine

»In the book, it is as if we ourselves were transported directly to the forest, to the endless hell to which Julia was dragged.«
»The book makes clear the need to not forget, to exhaust scene by scene, to give names to things so that the possibility arises of moving on. After finishing the book, one may wonder if it is first and foremost, a political work or if it is the story of a singular pain. For Levy, every book is political.«
»A must-read«
Elle

»Because every day, even if unconsciously, we fear the exact scene narrated in this immense and powerful work.«
»In Vista Chinesa, Tatiana narrates in a precise and vigorous way the crime that took place in Rio de Janeiro. It is necessary, poignant, terrifying, excellent literature.«
»It is a book about women who have been broken and the light that can emanate from them. About being alive and carrying on. It is a great book.«
Folha Corrida/Folha de S.Paulo

»The episode of sexual violence, the core of Tatiana’s work, is narrated with a disturbing richness of detail. So strong that you can sense the smell of the forest entering through your nose. The author pours out all that agony with rawness and, often, without drawing breath for punctuation. As if the text were bile spewing from the throat.«
O Globo

»Vista Chinesa, by Tatiana Salem Levy, is one of the most important books of recent times.«
»The main manifestation of overcoming hardship emerges in the author’s gesture, as she takes the pain of another as the starting point of her creation, of her research, producing collective life from a relationship of friendship. In Vista Chinesa, the literary form is thus an expression of the concept of sisterhood, going beyond the limits that, since becoming a mother, the character had imagined for herself.«
Revista Pessoa

»A style that balances precision and the poetic.«
Estadão

»The shards of memory are narrated in the book in a breathless flow, without commas. Past and present are intertwined and interspersed with thoughts and fragile memories, which evaporate when the protagonist tries to describe to the police what has happened to her.«
»The result is a collective appeal for us to discuss the unspeakable until cases like this become nothing more than a faded memory in national history.«
Epoca Globo

»The strength of the book lies in its sensitive construction, in its language, but also in its conception: Tatiana does not narrate her own pain, nor does she invent the pain of others. She gives her hand to Joana Jabace, the victim of the crime in question, and together they find the words to express what one would fatally silence, what the other would not dare to explore. And now the gesture of solidarity has become explosive, is taking hold of a community of readers and has already given rise to other accounts of the unspeakable. It has become the ordinary action that the present demands of us.«
Julián Fuks, UOL Brasil

»One of the merits of Vista Chinesa is that it articulates organically, through a well-calibrated form, the public and intimate issues it raises.«
Michel Laub, Valor

»The most beautiful novel I have read in recent times.«
Maria Fernanda Rodrigues, Estadão (São Paulo)

»A beautiful book, acute and deeply felt, every word earned and revealing.«
Sydney Morning Herald

»With intimate prose, combining delicacy and vigor, she is an outstanding voice in new Brazilian literature. If you haven’t read her books yet, you’re missing out on a lot.«
O Globo

»With Tatiana Salem Levy, everything comes directly from the heart: pain, love, desire, death. A breathtaking novel.«
La Liberté

»Inevitably, the reader is drawn into Tatiana’s gravitational field, just like Lewis Carroll’s Alice. A stunning and creative narrator.«
Bravo!

»The image of the two rivers fans out like a flood of doubles, obeying the driving force of the story line.«
Folha de S. Paulo

»A delightful and irresistible story, with beautiful illustrations by Vera Tavares.«
Dois Pontos

»The book is recommended by the PNL (National Reading Plan) to support projects related to nature and environmental protection in the 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th grades. But, as with many books recommended for a particular age group, this book will also delight any adult who is lucky enough to read it. It’s a pleasurable journey through Brazilian folklore, which many people in Portugal first came into contact with on the long-running TV series The Yellow Woodpecker Farm (“Sítio do Picapau Amarelo”).
Just as important as the text, the illustrations by Portuguese artist Vera Tavares turn the book into a work of art and add immeasurable value to the words as the reader turns the pages. Text and images allow the reader to take a memorable journey through the Amazon rainforest.
We guarantee that the reader will never be the same again after meeting Pirapora, Janaína-Mameluca, the foolish hunter and all the animals of the forest.«
Médio Tejo